Maharashtra Police on Sunday arrested four people, including two teachers, in connection with the alleged question paper leak in the NEET undergraduate medical entrance exam, officials said.
The Nanded Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) detained Sanjay Tukaram Jadhav and Jalil Umarkhan Pathan, both teachers from Latur, on suspicion of involvement in the scam on Saturday. They were questioned and released on Sunday morning, but later re-arrested along with two others, Iranna Mashnaji Kongalwar of Dharashiv district and a Delhi resident identified as Gangadhar.
An FIR (First Information Report) has been registered against all four under sections of the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. The FIR alleges that the accused ran a racket of selling exam information to students in exchange for money.
The ATS received information that Jadhav and Pathan were involved in such activities and raided their residences. The investigation revealed suspicious messages related to exam hall tickets and financial transactions on their phones.
“The investigation suggests that Jadhav might have passed on the hall ticket details to Kongalwar, who then forwarded them to Gangadhar in Delhi, suspected to be the mastermind behind the leak,” a police official said.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the Latur Deputy Commissioner of Police has been formed to further investigate the case.
The NEET-UG exam has seen students protest over allegations of a question paper leak and grace marks awarded to over 1,500 students. The grace marks were later scrapped and the affected students were offered a re-test.
Amid the raging controversy, the CBI took over the probe and filed an FIR in connection with alleged irregularities in NEET-UG on a reference from the Union education ministry. Special teams were dispatched to Gujarat and Bihar, where cases of question paper leaks have been registered by police.