NEET leak: 4 AIIMS Patna students ‘travelled to Jharkhand to solve paper’; RIMS student is latest arrest

Those arrested from AIIMS are second- and third-year students. The CBI has also arrested a person who helped facilitate logistics for their travel.

All five have been remanded in the agency’s custody.

The CBI has also formally arrested a first-year medical student of Ranchi’s RIMS on Friday, 24 hours after she was detained in connection with the case. According to the agency’s sources, the student, who is from Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district, was allegedly among those who solved the paper.

She is the fifth arrest in the case from Jharkhand. The institution confirmed the arrest but refused to make the name of the student public.

“The CBI had approached us with details and the first year MBBS student was taken into CBI custody on the evening of July 18. In this case, the RIMS administration will cooperate with the CBI and give whatever information is required,” Dr Rajiv Ranjan, the deputy medical superintendent and public relations officer of RIMS, told The Indian Express.

These developments came after the detention of Pankaj Kumar alias Aditya, a 2017-batch civil engineer from the National Institute of Technology in Jamshedpur and one of the main accused in the case.

“Pankaj Kumar alias Aditya, who allegedly leaked the question paper, had first given it to the ‘Solver Gang’ in Hazaribagh. The gang had reportedly got four AIIMS Patna students and some others to solve papers. The Patna solver gang received the solved question paper on May 4 morning,” a source from the CBI said.

According to sources, investigators found what they suspect was a partially burnt NEET-UG question paper at the Patna playschool. The CBI is now investigating the money trail of these students, they said.