New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested three key suspects on Saturday in the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak case. The arrests include a B.Tech graduate the alleged mastermind and two MBBS students who reportedly acted as ‘solvers’ in the scheme.
The alleged mastermind has been identified as Shashi Kumar Paswan, also known as Paasu, a B.Tech graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur. The two MBBS students arrested are Kumar Manglam Bishnoi, a second-year student, and Deependra Kumar, a first-year student, both from a medical school in Bharatpur, Rajasthan.
These arrests come a day after the CBI took Surabhi Kumari, a first-year MBBS student at Ranchi’s Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), into custody. Kumari was interrogated for two days regarding her alleged involvement in solving the stolen examination paper on the day of the NEET-UG exam, May 5.
Earlier this week, four MBBS students from AIIMS Patna, suspected to be part of the solver module, were also arrested and placed under a four-day remand. The solver module was reportedly responsible for quickly solving the stolen paper and creating an answer key, which was then provided to NEET aspirants who had paid for their services.
Police sources said the four MBBS students were suspected of having been engaged by the alleged paper leak kingpin Sanjeev Mukhiya’s gang to solve the papers.
The paper leak scandal has sparked widespread outrage, prompting the CBI to launch a massive crackdown on those involved. The NEET-UG paper was allegedly stolen by Pankaj Kumar, also known as Aditya, a 2017-batch civil engineer from NIT Jamshedpur. Kumar is accused of taking the paper from the NTA trunk in Hazaribagh.
