CBI busts NEET cheating racket; 8 people, including mastermind, arrested

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 18

The anti-graft central probe agency CBI today said it has arrested eight accused persons, including mastermind and solvers of questions, in a case related to mass rigging in the NEET UG-2022 examination conducted yesterday.

The competitive examination was conducted by NTA under the Ministry of Education (Govt of India) for the admission in the undergraduate medical courses of different streams including MBBS, BDS, BAMS and BHMS.

The CBI in an official statement said an FIR has been registered naming 11 accused on the allegations related to mass rigging in the examination.

In the FIR, the CBI has alleged that an accused (mastermind), a resident of Delhi, in conspiracy with others including some candidates, was involved in arranging question solvers to impersonate candidates in the said examination at several centers of Delhi and Haryana.

During investigation of the case, the mastermind and solvers were caught from different examination centres and other places of Delhi and Haryana while appearing and impersonating as other candidates.

Identifying those who have been arrested, a senior CBI official said, mastermind Sushil Ranjan, a resident of Delhi, was apprehended from outside of Havelock Square exam centre in the city.

The official said, “Krishna Shankar Yogi and Sunny Ranjan, both were caught from examination centre at Sector-8, Faridabad, and Nidhi was caught from examination centre at a school in Havelock Square, New Delhi.”

“Jeepu Lal (caught from examination centre) at a school in Kundan Colony, Ballabhgarh, Haryana), Raghunandan (caught from examination centre at a Senior Secondary School, Patparganj, New Delhi), Bharat Singh (apprehended from Safdarjung hospital hostel) and Saurabh (caught from examination centre Govt Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Shakurpur, New Delhi),” he said.

“It was alleged that the user IDs and passwords of the certain candidates appearing for the examination had been collected by the said persons and their associates. The accused persons also made necessary modifications for getting desired examination centers as planned by them,” the CBI said.

They also allegedly used the process of mixing and morphing photographs to facilitate use of proxy candidates for appearing in the examination, it said, adding that copies of identity cards of such candidates were being collected for the purpose of making forged ID cards.

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