The Central Bureau of Investigation, in an official statement on Thursday, said that the NEET paper leak 'mastermind' Pankaj Kumar worked with the principal and vice principal of Oasis School in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh to access the question paper hours before the exam on May 5.
The agency said that the papers were solved and sent to those candidates who paid for Kumar's services.
Kumar colluded with Oasis School principal Ehsanul Haque and vice principal Imtiaz Alam in supplying the solved papers to the candidates.
Haque was also made the city coordinator of Hazaribagh for the NEET UG examination, while Alam was the designated NTA observer and the centre coordinator at the School.
Notably, all of these three accused have been arrested by the agency, the statement said. It added that the centre could be identified using the half burnt question papers, which were recovered from a Patna hostel.
A CBI spokesperson said that the trunks containing the question paper of the NEET-UG 2024 exam was brought to the school and kept in the control room in the morning of May 5.
"Minutes after the trunks arrived, the above said Principal and Vice Principal unauthorisedly and illegally allowed access to the room where the trunks were kept, to the mastermind named above. The sophisticated tools used to open the trunk and access the question papers from the trunk have been seized," the spokesperson added.
The paper was solved at Hazaribagh on the morning of examination by a set of solvers who are enrolled in MBBS courses at AIIMS Patna, RIMS Ranchi and a Bharatpur Medical College.
The seven alleged solvers have also been arrested by the federal probe agency, news agency PTI reported.
"The solved paper was shared with certain selected students who paid money to the accused. All the solvers, who are MBBS students from reputed colleges, have been identified and most of them arrested. These solvers were specially brought to Hazaribagh as part of the conspiracy," the CBI spokesperson noted.
The agency said that other masterminds and gang members who worked with Kumar in the alleged crime have been identified and some of them have even been arrested.
"This group was actively assisted by a set of accused persons who arranged places for housing the candidates, another set of accused were involved in mobilising and ferrying the candidates," CBI said, adding that those aspirants who gained access to the solved papers are being traced and necessary action is being taken against them.
So far, 36 persons have been arrested in connection with the paper leak and the alleged discrepancies in the NEET UG 2024 examination.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered its verdict on the NEET UG issue and refused to cancel the national level medical entrance test. It said that there wasn't sufficient material to show that sanctity of the entire examination has been affected.
The apex court also said it realised that ordering a fresh exam would replete serious consequences on the more than 24 lakh aspirants who had appeared for the May 5 exam.
The Supreme Court said the demand for the cancellation of the exam is not justified, adding that data on record "does not indicate systemic leak of question paper of NEET-UG 24."
However, it said the fact that the leak of question paper indeed took place in Hazaribagh and Patna is "not in dispute", and referred to the CBI's status report to say that "155 students drawn from the exam centres at Hazaribagh and Patna appeared to be the beneficiaries of the fraud".
The National Testing Agency on May 5 conducted the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test - Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 at 4,750 centres across 571 cities, including 14 abroad.
The NEET exam is conducted for admissions into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other medical courses in government and private institutions across the nation.
