Hazaribag coaching centre head, teacher under CBI's NEET scanner
Hazaribag coaching centre head, teacher under CBI's NEET scanner
HAZARIBAG/CHATRA: The director of a prominent coaching centre in Jharkhand's Hazaribag and a teacher at the institute are on CBI's radar as the focus of the agency's probe into the NEET-UG paper leak shifts from the three arrested suspects to their collaborators and conduits spread across multiple locations, officials said Sunday.
CBI detained two suspects from Chatra district late Saturday for questioning in Patna. Based on the interrogation of arrested Oasis School principal Ehsanul Haque, vice-principal Mohammad Imtiyaz Alam and journalist Jamaluddin, CBI officials also spoke to three students in Hazaribag who were among the top scorers in the May 5 entrance test. Oasis School housed a NEET-UG exam centre.
The city has over two dozen NEET and JEE coaching centres spread across Korrah, Matwari, Pugmil, and Bansilal Chowk. The director and professor of at least one of them are suspected to have links with Haque. The agency is piecing together information about another institute's possible involvement in the racket.
A source said Sanjiv Mukhiya, the alleged kingpin of the NEET-UG paper leak in Bihar, had visited Hazaribag before the exam and contacted some coaching centres to supply leaked questions. "The teacher CBI identified as a possible link in the chain had spoken to Mukhiya using someone else's phone and a new SIM."
Manoj Kumar, the e-rickshaw driver who had transported boxes containing NEET-UG papers to the SBI branch in whose strongroom they were stored, told CBI earlier this week that one person sat in his vehicle while two others followed them on a motorcycle. CCTV footage showed that he arrived at the SBI branch two hours after starting from a destination that should have taken a maximum of 15 minutes, the source said.
CBI has relocated the arrested trio to Patna to cross-examine them with others in custody there, aiming to unravel the extent of the conspiracy and find the missing links. Officials said the Oasis School principal's mobile call details suggest he was in regular contact with many people in the run-up to NEET-UG.
The ambit of CBI's probe has already widened to include UGC-NET after evidence purportedly emerged of a thriving racket in Hazaribag involving paper leaks across competitive examinations and the existence of a customer base willing to pay vast amounts of money for unfair advantage in cracking these tests.
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