The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested two more persons accused in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) - NEET-UG 2024 paper leak case. Pankaj Kumar and Raju Singh were arrested from Patna and Hazaribagh, respectively.
CBI sources said that key accused Pankaj Kumar is a resident of Bokaro in Jharkhand. He has been charged with the stealing of the question paper from a trunk belonging to the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) trunk in Hazaribagh. The second accused, Raju Singh, is said to have helped Kumar.
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Sources said that Singh was arrested from a guesthouse in Hazaribag located in the Ramnagar locality that falls under the Katkamdag police station limits.
Singh is the fourth person arrested from Hazaribagh in the paper leak case. The investigation agency had earlier arrested Oasis School principal Ahsanul Haque, vice-principal Imtiaz Alam and a local newspaper journalist Jamaludin from Hazaribagh. The central agency had conducted searches at the school and gathered evidence from the premises.
Two teachers of the school were summoned to Patna, but were later released after interrogation. As part of the probe, the employees of Blue Dart Courier were questioned as also an e-rickshaw driver who had delivered the question paper from the courier office to the State Bank of India branch in Hazaribagh. Officials at the SBI branch where the question papers were held for safe-keeping were also questioned.
The CBI is conducting the probe after the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) handed over the case, in which the total number of people arrested is 14.
On July 11, the CBI achieved a major breakthrough in the case by arresting one of the key accused, Rakesh Rajan alias Rocky, a resident of Nalanda district in Bihar. Rocky was produced before the special CBI court, which granted the agency 10 days’ custody for questioning.
Rocky is alleged to have made arrangements for persons to solve the question paper after the leak. He is one of the trusted gang members of Sanjeev Mukhiya, who is believed to be the kingpin in the case. Rocky is also a relative of Mukhiya. Rocky had arranged for MBBS students from Patna and Ranchi to solve the question paper. Before arresting Rocky, a CBI team had raided his house in Gajendra Bigha village in Nalanda on June 30, 2024.
On July 12, the Patna High Court granted custody of 13 persons, who were previously arrested by the Patna Police to the CBI.
Published - July 16, 2024 04:52 pm IST
