NEW DELHI: In an unprecedented move, the National Testing Agency on Tuesday night put out two videos warning parents and students taking up the upcoming NEET-UG retest on June 21 not to believe any kind of message that advance questions were available for a price.
There is absolutely no leak of the re-exam, and anyone saying anything to the contrary is a scamster, it said.
NTA Director General Abishek Singh, who has never come out in public since he assumed office, put out a video defending the decision of the agency to ban Telegram in the interests of 22-lakh-plus genuine students.
Fraudsters used edited chats and used the platform to sell fake question papers and misled students, he said.
“Channels demanding Rs 14,000 to Rs 25,000, some even Rs 10 lakh, claimed they will send the re-exam paper. They won’t. There is no leaked paper for the re-exam. The money is gone the moment you transfer it. Your admit card and WhatsApp number, if you sent them, become the tools they use to scam the next student,” Singh said in a broadcast made public.
Fake-proof videos show chats before the exam.
“The trick is that on Telegram, whoever runs a channel can edit any old message and change what’s inside it, while the date on the message stays the same. So a message edited on the fourth can be made to look exactly like it was sent on the first,” he explained.
He appealed to the students not to get anxious and be tempted by such messages. The same trick can be tried again after June 21, too, he said.
“Don’t forward such messages and don’t pay anyone,” the Director added.
NTA also released a video by V Kamakoti, Director of IIT.
“The same Telegram trick has already been used to fake leaks for JEE Advanced and the IISER aptitude tests.
“Same playbook. Different exam. Don’t fall for it. Stay focused on your preparations,” he said in another video message.
Kamokoti also made a live demo of a student sending a PDF file at a specific time. (3.39 pm). A minute later, the message is edited, and the file is silently replaced with pdf2.pdf.
“The time stamp still reads 3.39 pm. This indicates nothing has been changed. Telegram allows this for up to 48 hours after a message is sent.”
This is exactly how fake leak videos are made, the Director added.
