Gurugram : Sikar, fast emerging as Rajasthan’s new Kota, is now the biggest focus area of the CBI in its probe into the NEET paper leak case. The “leak” eventually prompted the under-fire National Testing Agency (NTA) to cancel the NEET-UG exam held on May 3, affecting over 22 lakh candidates and triggering massive protests in Delhi.
Investigators believe that the NEET-UG paper might have been leaked directly from the printing press in Nashik. Sources said a person associated with the printing press is likely to have passed the paper into a “chain network” through which it reached a doctor in Gurugram, Haryana. It is here that things get interesting. From Jamwa Ramgarh, the paper allegedly reached a person named Rakesh Kumar Mandawaria in Sikar. Rakesh works as an MBBS counselling agent outside major coaching institutes in Sikar.
In fact, the paper had been circulating for nearly 15 days before the May 3 examination, being sold to medical aspirants for anywhere between Rs 30,000 and Rs 28 lakh. In fact, a student from Nagaur, who arrived in Sikar four days before the May 3 exam, shelled out Rs 28 lakh for the paper. It started with Rakesh selling the paper for Rs 30,000 to one of his aides, a Sikar student studying MBBS in Kerala. Just a day before the exam, the MBBS student sent the paper to his father, a PG operator in Sikar.
Without giving it much thought, the PG operator allegedly circulated the paper among the girls staying at the hostel, investigators said. After the NEET-UG exam ended on May 3, the PG operator asked a teacher at a coaching institute to verify how many questions actually appeared in the exam. It was found that all 90 questions in Biology and all 45 questions in Chemistry asked in the NEET exam were found in the “guess paper” that contained 281 questions. The NEET exam has a total of 180 questions, each carrying four marks.
After learning this, the hostel operator first approached the Udyog Nagar police station in Sikar. However, he told investigators that the police dismissed him, asking him not to spread rumours. He then shared the information with the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the NEET exam. The NTA passed on the information to the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which then alerted the Rajasthan Police. Following this, the Rajasthan SOG launched an investigation and initially detained around 15 people, including the hostel operator.
Investigators, for now, have zeroed in on Sikar and Jaipur. They suspect that Sikar is likely to have become a new hub for paper leak networks. There is a reason behind it. After Kota, a major JEE-NEET coaching hub, Sikar is rapidly emerging as one of India’s largest coaching centres. With admissions declining in Kota, a large number of students are gradually shifting towards Sikar.
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