NEET-UG paper leak case: CBI arrests ‘mastermind’, two members of ‘solver gang’ in NEET-UG paper leak case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigating the paper leak of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) 2024 on Saturday arrested the mastermind and two other MBBS students who allegedly acted as ‘solvers’ in the NEET-UG paper leak case.

Shashi Kumar Paswan alias Paasu, believed to be the alleged mastermind behind the paper leak case, is a B.Tech graduate from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Jamshedpur, while the two others were identified as Kumar Mangla Bishnoi, second-year MBBS student in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur, and Deependra Kumar, a first-year student.

Sources said that the mastermind was arrested in Patna while the two students were detained from the outskirts of Patna.

CBI sources said that Mr. Paswan is a close associate of Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky, who is already in CBI custody and responsible for arranging MBBS students from Patna and Ranchi to solve the question paper. Mr. Bishnoi and Mr. Kumar have been arrested on the charge that they were physically present in Patna, along with other ‘solvers’, on the morning of May 5 to solve the leaked papers.

Around 20 aspirants, along with many ‘solvers’, had been present at a play school in Patna’s Khemnichak locality where they were asked to memorise the answers to the medical test on the eve of the exam. All of them reportedly left the school in the early hours of May 5 and went straight to different examination centres.

Mr. Paswan is the second NIT, Jamshedpur graduate to be arrested in the case. Earlier this week, CBI arrested Pankaj Kumar alias Adiya, a resident of Bokaro and a civil engineer from the same institute, on charges of stealing the NEET-UG paper from the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) trunk in Hazaribagh. He was arrested along with Raju Singh, a resident of Hazaribagh who had helped Pankaj in the theft.

In the past two days, the CBI has arrested five MBBS students from Patna and Ranchi. On July 19, Surabhi Kumari, a first-year MBBS student of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), was arrested from Ranchi, while four undergraduate students of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Patna — Chandan Singh, Kumar Shanu, Rahul Anand and Karan Jain — were arrested on the day before.

The CBI is investigating the chain of custody of the question papers and has recorded the statements of several persons from exam centres in many States. An in-depth investigation is under way to determine the time of leak/breach that led to this large-scale crime.