The Maharashtra Police arrested a student from Nashik in Maharashtra who allegedly obtained a physical copy of the National Eligibility Test (NEET-UG) guess paper on Tuesday.
The student identified as Shubham Khairnar was a BSc student in Bhopal and had obtained a physical copy of the ‘guess’ paper in Nashik a few days before the NEET exam on May 3. He sent an electronic copy to a person in Haryana, said a senior Rajasthan Police officer aware of the investigation by the Special Operations Group (SOG).
The official said that Khairnar’s interrogation will reveal the source of the physical paper. A senior SOG official said the ‘guess’ paper leaked from a printing press in Nashik and was used in Haryana or Rajasthan. “We believe that the actual leaked paper was used to prepare a speculative paper which may be in Haryana or in Rajasthan,” he said.
He added that there is a well-organized network at the state level that includes those who solve identity papers for imitators.
The handwritten guess sheet matched 120 of the 150 biology and chemistry questions from the original sheet, officials said. The same was sold to employees in paying guest houses for NEET students and coaching centres. The guess sheet contains 410 questions with answers.
Rajasthan Police also arrested a consultant from a coaching center in Sikar, who allegedly paid the money $5 lakh to buy guess paper and sell it to NEET aspirants via WhatsApp.
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It is confirmed that in 2023, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided an accountant’s office at a prominent coaching center in Sikar in connection with paper leak in the Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET), 2021. SOG officials said the academy is still under their lens in the case.
On Monday, the SOG handed over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
A senior SOG official said their investigations unearthed a network of at least 45 people spread across Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, who provided the ‘guess paper’ to NEET aspirants.
SOG launched the investigation after finding that at least 120 questions in the NEET paper held on May 3 were similar to those in the ‘guess’ paper circulated on WhatAapp groups.
SOG officials believe that someone has access to the actual question paper on the basis of which the model question paper has been prepared.
Some students had complained to the police about the “guess” paper after taking the exam “peacefully” at the state coaching centre, Sikar coordinator of the National Testing Agency (NTA), Narsee Ram, said on Sunday. About 30 thousand students attended the exam there.
