NEW DELHI: The CBI has arrested eight people who allegedly tried to rig the NEET-UG examination for medical courses that was held Sunday by placing dummy candidates through fraudulent means. The alleged mastermind is among those held.
The NEET-UG examination, which had received 18 lakhs applications this year, was conducted at more than 3,500 centres.
According to sources, the agency got a tip-off about a huge amount of money exchanged between the suspects and candidates for impersonation. The solvers and middlemen had gathered in the city on July 16-17 and were provided with accommodation in various hotels and other places near Gautam Nagar in south Delhi.
Using surveillance to gather leads, CBI laid a trap at offline centres where exams were to be held between 2pm and 5.20pm. The mastermind, Sushil Ranjan, was in close touch with all of the accused, the probe revealed. A swoop across Delhi was planned and executed by the agency’s anti-corruption branch.
Ranjan, a resident of Gautam Nagar, and a solver, identified as Nidhi, were held from Havelock Square exam centre near Gol Market. The other solvers were identified as Krishna Shankar Yogi and Sunny Ranjan, who were caught from a centre at Sector 8, Faridabad; Jeepu Lal, held from Ballabhgarh, Haryana; Raghunandan, arrested from a centre in Patparganj; Bharat Singh, held from Safdarjung hospital hostel; and Saurabh, who was nabbed from a centre in Shakurpur.
Singh and Saurabh did not appear for the exam but forged the Aadhaar of the candidate. Other documents were also recovered from them. The two men were produced in court and taken in remand.
CBI filed an FIR after getting information that Ranjan had conspired with a group of people to arrange “solvers” to impersonate candidates in the NEET examination at multiple centres in Delhi and Haryana.
“It was alleged that user IDs and passwords of certain candidates had been collected by the accused and their associates and necessary modifications were made for getting the desired exam centres as planned by them,” CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said.
Probe revealed the accused had morphed aspirants’ photographs so that proxy candidates could appear for the exam with forged documents, said an official.
“During investigation, the mastermind and solvers were caught from different examination centres and other places in Delhi and Haryana while appearing for or impersonating other candidates,” the spokesperson added.
The agency is now looking for other suspects and examining their roles. They have been identified as Brij Mohan Gupta, Pappu, Uma Shankar Gupta and Hemendra, officials said. More arrests are likely in the coming days.