Two trunks carrying the original question papers of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate), or NEET-UG 2024 examination, were collected by one Ahsanul Haque from an SBI bank vault in Bihar’s Hazaribagh at 7:40 am on May 5, 2024. These trunks were then handed over to Imtiaz Alam, who brought them to Oasis School – one of the exam centres in Hazaribagh – at 7:53 am. They allegedly allowed one Pankaj Kumar to take digital copies of the question papers from one of the trunks, after which the papers were promptly solved, and scanned copies of the solved papers were sent to co-conspirators in Patna. This is how the NEET-UG 2024 question paper leak began, according to a chargesheet filed by the CBI before a court in Patna on August 1, 2024, The Indian Express has learnt. Haque, the principal of Oasis school, and Alam, the vice-principal, had been appointed by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the centralised medical entrance exam, as coordinator of the exam for Hazaribagh town and superintendent of the examination centre, respectively. The exam was held on May 5, 2024, from 2 pm to 5 pm, at 4,750 centres across 571 cities, including 14 centres abroad. In Patna, police got a tip-off that the paper had been leaked to some candidates, following which a case was registered and eight people, including four candidates, were arrested the same day. On May 17, 2024, the case was handed over to the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police, and on June 23, the CBI took over. On August 1, the CBI filed its first chargesheet. During the investigation, 37 arrests were made under sections of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and forgery. In the 63-page chargesheet, the CBI has reconstructed the trail of the paper leak from Hazaribagh to Patna. According to the chargesheet, Haque and Alam allegedly allowed Kumar’s “concealed entry” to the control room at the Oasis School centre after trunks carrying the question papers were kept there. “Kumar entered the control room from the rear door at 8:02 am and left the control room at 9:23 am. The act of entry and exit has been recorded in the CCTV footage of Oasis School. Kumar tampered with the rear side of one of the trunks containing the NEET-UG 2024 question papers. He took out one (question) paper… took its digital copies, placed the original paper back into the trunk after sealing the covers and then resealed the trunk,” the chargesheet states. Subsequently, he got the question paper solved with the help of MBBS students — part of an alleged solver gang — present at a location in Hazaribagh. The solved copies were scanned on a mobile phone and sent to the mobile number of Patna-based Baldev Kumar alias Chintu via WhatsApp as a PDF at 10:50 am on May 5 (the day of the exam). The first PDF had biology questions with tick marks on the correct answers. According to the chargesheet, Baldev got the solved question paper printed using a printer brought by one Nitish Kumar, another accused. Fifteen sets of question papers were solved, and each set was given to a group of around two-three candidates. “During this process, accused persons Baldev Kumar alias Chintu, Pintu Kumar, Nitish Kumar, Abhimanyu Patel, Ashutosh Kumar and Manish Prakash were present at the Learn Play School in Patna. About 30-32 students were called to the residential school with the help of one of the main accused and conduit between students and the solver gang, Sikander Prasad Yadvendu, a Samastipur resident living at Danapur, Patna,” the chargesheet states. At 11:05 am on May 5, another solved question paper, that of Chemistry, was received on Baldev's mobile phone from the same number. The solved Physics question paper was received at 11:40 am. While candidates started memorising answers at Learn Play School, Nitish Kumar took a few sets of the solved Biology papers to his residence at Pratibha Colony, Ramakrishnanagar, where seven women candidates were asked to memorise the solved answers from the leaked paper, the chargesheet states. At 12:30 pm, all candidates at both locations were asked to leave for their respective examination centres. The candidates were frisked by the other accused to ensure that none of them carried any part of the solved paper to the centres. Soon after the students left to write the exam, Patna police got a tip-off regarding the paper leak from an informant near Learn Play School. Subsequently, they checked the CCTV recordings of a house adjacent to the school and looked at the footage between May 4 midnight and May 5 noon, noting down the movements of those coming in and out of the school. Shastri Nagar police station in-charge inspector Amar Kumar then led a team that first intercepted Sikander Prasad Yadvendu's car and seized copies of NEET-UG admit cards of candidates Abhishek Kumar, Shiv Nandan Kumar, Ayush Raj and Anurag Yadav. Yadvendu was arrested. Police then formed four teams to go to the exam centres of the candidates whose admit cards were found in the car. The teams waited for the exam to conclude and then arrested the four candidates when they came out. It was Yadvendu, a junior engineer with the Bihar government, who allegedly got in touch with the NEET-UG candidates, promising them he would provide solved question papers before the exam in lieu of Rs 30-40 lakh per candidate, according to officials. The candidates were told to choose Patna as their preferred location for the exam. Investigating the case, Patna police found half-burnt question papers from the roof of Learn Play School. The CBI chargesheet said the half-burnt papers were copies of an original test booklet that was used in the Hazaribagh exam centre. More material was recovered from the phones of the accused, including Yadvendu. The CBI also found that a picture of one page of the question papers was found in accused Nitish Kumar’s phone. The timestamp on the image shows 11:23 am, May 5, making it clear to investigators that it was out before the exam started, the chargesheet said.
