Aspirant who gained from NEET scam held in Patna

“During investigation, it came to light that the accused had cleared MBBS after 12 attempts and got rank 386 in the NEET exam held last year,” police sources said. They added that the alleged cheating took place at two examination centres — in Chandigarh and Greater Noida. NEET is held to admit students to postgraduate medical courses. “The accused took the exam at the Greater Noida centre and his name came up during questioning of the arrested accused, who helped aspirants cheat,” police sources said.

As reported by The Indian Express in April, Delhi Police had discovered that computer servers at exam centres were allegedly hacked to help some students cheat in the exam, following which three persons — Abhishek Singh, Atul Vats and Hansul — were arrested. Sources said weeks after cracking the case and arresting the three men, police identified some “beneficiaries”. However, they were not able to gather direct evidence against them. Subsequently, the supervisors of the two examination centres were arrested. “After arresting the supervisors and their subordinates, all students who benefited were identified and evidence against them was found. The investigating officer sent a request to his seniors at the Delhi Police headquarters, seeking permission to take legal action against these applicants,” police said.

The evidence found by investigators include photos of questions sent by the aspirants to those who were helping them cheat. The solved papers were then sent back to the exam centre. “Police have collected CCTV footage from both centres, and have found that some students were using their mobile phones in the last 45 minutes of the exam — minutes after they received solved answers,” police sources claimed, adding that some of these students got admission in prominent medical colleges across the country. “The Chandigarh examination centre in-charge, Ankur Mishra, who has been arrested, hacked the examination server and shared the software with his associates, who also used it to hack the server. The CCTVs at the centres were switched off during the hacking. They were turned back on later,” police said.