The Bihar government’s Economic Offenses Unit (EOU) in a report submitted to the Center on Saturday said the NEET-UG exam “clearly shows a question paper leak”. This was discovered by The Indian Express.
The Center sought a report from the EOU, which took over the probe following the arrest of 13 people, including four examinees, after the examination ended on May 5. The EOU board is headed by Additional Director General Khan.
“Our report to the education department elaborates on three things – a clear suggestion of a paper leak based on the evidence so far, inter-state gang nexus and suspected role of Bihar’s notorious ‘fixing gang’,” sources told The Indian Express. .
This is in line with an earlier report by The Indian Express. “We are working on some of the communications we got during our investigation, which points to a paper leak,” Khan told The Indian Express.
The six-page EOU report to the Center said that the photocopy of the question paper from which the cremated remains were seized, the interrogation and confessional statements of the accused and two more examinees indicated a leak of investigation.
It highlighted that four of the arrested candidates had testified to the police, all accused of memorizing answers from the leaked question paper, when they lived at a place in Rajbanshi Nagar. The four eventually scored 581, 483, 300 and 185 out of 720.
The report also said that there was evidence that an inter-state gang rooted in Jharkhand was working with the ‘Thirdum Gang’ in Bihar. The EOU recently detained four persons from Jharkhand and arrested one Sanjeev Mukhya from Nalanda, who is said to be the ‘gang’s leader’.
The EOU suspects that the members of the ‘Thirpu gang’ from Nalanda procured the question paper from Jharkhand, solved it with the help of experts and sent it to two other convicts, Nitish Kumar from Patna and Amit Anand from Khagaria. Four examiners were allegedly in touch with Nitish and Amit through Danapur Municipal Council Junior Engineer Sikandar B Yadavendu, another prime accused in the case.
Question Paper Leak and Probe
On the night of May 4, the Patna police received a call from a police officer from Jharkhand that the exam may have been leaked the next day when four NEET candidates allegedly memorized the solved paper. The Patna police swung into action but could not immediately pin down the whereabouts of the accused, investigating officials told The Indian Express.
The next day the exam was conducted in 27 centers in Bihar. On the afternoon of May 5, the Shastri Nagar police station received specific information about some suspects gathering at a house in Rajbanshi Nagar. Three teams were formed – one to search the house and seize the burnt question paper. Another went to the examination center in the area and arrested the candidate and his father. They also searched for the third main accused, Junior Engineer Yadavendu.
The police arrested three more selectors and four ‘setters’, including Nitish and Amit, after Yadavenda revealed the names and whereabouts of the suspects. The statements of the 13 accused were recorded on May 5 before Sub-Inspector Tej Narayan Singh.
The arrests became public on May 7 – at which time all 13 accused were remanded in judicial custody on charges of criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. The Patna police initially avoided calling it a paper leak, but the confessions indicated that it was.
