PATNA:Police have arrested five people, including two MBBS students, for attempting to leak the question paper of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) conducted across the country on Sunday.
According to the cops, two of the five accused – Shiv Kumar and Shivam Mandal – are students of reputed government-run medical colleges in the city.
Kumar is a second-year student of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) while Mandal is a student of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH), said Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj.
The five accused had managed to get into a van carrying question papers from a Canara Bank branch in the city to the examination centre at Christ Church School, two kilometres away, in the morning.
They succeeded in opening the metal box containing question papers in sealed packets and were trying to photograph them using mobile phones.
“They had equipment needed to open the metal box and seal the question paper packets after taking the photographs. After receiving a tip-off about their plans, the police intervened before they could finish their act,” said Maharaaj, who on Monday formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the full reach of the gang and arrest the kingpin and at least ten people.
The superintendent of Christ Church School centre, Avinash Chandra Dubey, a law student Avinash Roshan, and van driver Sanjay Yadav were the three others arrested along with the two MBBS students, police said.
Meanwhile, sources indicated three of the five people arrested in Jaipur for similar attempt to leak the NEET question papers on Sunday belonged to Bihar.
“The paper-leak gang seems to have tentacles across the country. Preliminary investigations suggest the fraudsters were demanding as high as `20 lakh from each NEET aspirant who sought to benefit,” said a police official. NEET was conducted successfully after the attempts to leak the question papers and send answers by WhatsApp were foiled.