The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a journalist in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh and conducted searches at seven locations in Gujarat in connection with the NEET-UG paper leak case. The journalist who has been identified as Jamaluddin Ansari works for a Hindi newspaper ‘Prabhat Khabar’ and has been accused of assisting the principal and vice-principal of Oasis School, who were captured on 28th June. This is the agency’s fifth arrest in the matter after it took over the case from Bihar’s Economic Offences Unit (EOU).
Ehsanul Haque, the principal of Oasis School, was appointed the city coordinator of Hazaribagh for the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) medical entrance examination carried out on 5th May. Vice principal Imtiaz Alam was assigned as the centre coordinator and NTA observer at the institution. CBI traced two journalists who had connections with the principal and vice-principal, one of which has now been apprehended. Notably, the CBI is likely to arrest more accused in the case.
Two other people Manish Kumar and Ashutosh have already been nabbed. Ashutosh gave the students shelter at his house while Manish Kumar helped drive the students in his car and is suspected of providing the use of an abandoned school where at least twenty pupils were handed the leaked paper and memorized it. The pair were taken into custody after being summoned by the agency to be questioned on 27th June. Three candidates in Gujarat who had solicited help to clear the exam recorded their statements with the probe agency.
The Oasis School was the source of the paper leak, according to the CBI’s investigation. The questioned paper boxes were stored in banks and had two locks including a digital lock that was unlocked forty-five minutes prior to the exam and a manual lock that required a key. Furthermore, the agency has taken up the investigation in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar and filed six First Information Reports related to the matter. This includes five from the states where it took over the inquiry, as well as its own official complaint based on a reference from the Union Ministry of Education. Three cases in Rajasthan and one each in Gujarat and Bihar have been taken over by the investigation agency.
The first FIR by the central agency was lodged on 23rd June, one day after the ministry declared it would turn over the investigation into the anomalies in the exam’s administration to the CBI. The searches at seven locations in Gujarat are reportedly linked to the suspects in the paper leak case. The raids occurred at Godhra, Kheda, Ahmedabad and Anand. In addition to five further arrests made later, there are 13 accused in the case, including four examinees.
The EOU stated that the infamous Sanjeev Kumar also known as Lutan Mukhiya gang reportedly stole the “leaked” NEET-UG question paper from the Oasis School in Hazaribagh. It was reported that the investigators had verified the source of the leak by comparing a partially burned question paper that they had discovered in the Patna safe house with the reference question paper provided by the NTA. They added that the probe had also revealed that the Hazaribagh officials had not appropriately followed the established procedures for opening the question paper boxes.
Ehsanul Haque has insisted that the reason the question paper box could not be opened was that the computerized lock inside it, which was meant to open on its own, had broken. Afterwards, he alleged, that he got in touch with the NTA who requested that he open the box using a cutter.
