144 candidates paid to get leaked NEET-UG 2024 question paper: CBI

The CBI has identified 144 candidates who had allegedly paid to get NEET-UG leaked and solved papers hours before they were to take the examination for admissions in medical colleges, officials said on Monday.

In its third charge sheet filed last week, the CBI has named Pankaj Kumar who stole the papers from Oasis school in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand in collusion with its Principal Ahsanul Haque and Vice-Principal Md Imtiyaz Alam, they said.

The crime was allegedly committed once trunks carrying the paper reached the school from the bank vault after 8 AM on May 5, the day of the examination, they said.

Haque was the city coordinator for Hazaribagh and Alam was designated the centre superintendent by the National Testing Agency for conducting the NEET UG-2024 examination.

The charge sheet with over 5,500 pages carrying findings on the basis of 298 witnesses, 290 documents and 45 material objects gives a detailed modus operandi of the gang that had leaked the paper.

Haque and Alam allege