As the NEET-UG Exam controversy continues to rage over the country, Bihar’s Economic Offences Unit has recently announced, that they have detained a member of the ‘solver gang’. Who received the question paper’s PDF on his phone, a day before the exam.
Issuing the statement, Bihar’s police agency said, ‘Based on the available evidence, the solved question papers of NEET UG-2024 examination held on 05.05.2024 were received on mobile by this gang.’
The arrested accused Baldev Kumar, alias Chintu, is connected with alleged kingpin of ‘solver gang’ Sanjeev Kumar, who is still absconding.
The native of Bihar’s Nalanda District Baldev Kumar was staying in a rented house in Patna.
Meanwhile, the other gang members too have been detained. Their names are Mukesh Kumar, Panku Kumar, Rajeev Kumar alias Karu and Paramjit Singh alias Bittu.
Already prior to the arrest, Mukesh Kumar, Karu and Paramjit Singh were registered as accused under EOU case.
According to EOU’s statement, the caught the five accused with the help of intelligence inputs and technical probe.
While trying to map the trail of question paper, EOU discovered, that the accused Baldev Kumar had acquired PDF of solved question paper on his mobile in the morning of May 5.
Later, its copies were taken from school’s Wi-Fi printer. Then the groups of candidates were constituted. After its formation, they were asked to memorize the paper.
As per EOU, the gang secretly planned to transfer the candidates. After deciding on drop-off location, they planned to take candidates to Learn Boys Hostel and Play School.
During the course of the probe, it was revealed, that a taxi was utilized to transfer candidates back and forth between drop-off location to schools.
Currently, the owner and taxi driver Mukesh Kumar has arrested. Along with his arrest, his vehicle too has been seized.
Moreover, during the investigation, the roll code details of 15 candidates were also found. It has now been received by NTA.
Later, the semi-burnt question paper recovered from Learn Boys Hostel and Play School was also received by NTA.
Talking about the half-burnt paper, EOU said,
‘After receiving the desired report related to the Serial Code of the half-burned question paper seized from N.T.A in the evening of 20 June, 2024, it became clear that the half-burned question paper recovered from Learn Boys Hostel and Play School, Ramakrishna Nagar for the NEET UG-2024 examination. The serial code is of the examination centre of Oasis School Kallu Chowk, Mandai Road of District Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. This has been verified. In the course of verification, prima facie, the polybag suspected of packing the question paper from the concerned examination centre of Hazaribagh, the packing of the original question paper recovered from the concerned candidate and the preliminary investigation in the related packing trunk, all these have been found to be tampered with and all these Suspicious exhibits have been duly confiscated.’
Besides half-burnt paper, the copy of SIMs was also given to Baldev along with others. In Jharkhand, a shady envelope box was also seized. Thus, hinting at the presence of inter-state gang.
So far, the case has now been transferred to CBI for further investigation into the matter.