PATNA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken three medical students of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Patna for questioning in connection with the NEET-UG paper leak case.
Their mobile phones and laptops have also been seized by the federal agency.
The students, belonging to the 2021 batch, have been taken to an unknown destination for interrogation after being picked up from their hostel late on Wednesday. The rooms of the students in question have been sealed, leaving other students at the institute in utter shock.
The detention of the students came after the interrogation of two key accused, Pankaj Kumar alias Aditya and Raju Singh from Patna and Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), respectively, on Tuesday.
The AIIMS-Patna students were stated to be in touch with the gang involved in the paper leak case.
Sources said that the AIIMS students had helped the members of the ‘solvers gang’ led by Sanjeev Kumar Singh alias Lutan Mukhiya of Nalanda solve the questions obtained from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.
“The AIIMS-Patna students have been detained for interrogation,” a source in the investigating agency said.
Pankaj Kumar, a resident of Bokaro in Jharkhand, has been arrested in Patna on charges of stealing the question paper from an NTA (National Testing Agency) trunk in Hazaribagh ahead of the examination held on May 5.
Pankaj alias Aditya is a 2017-batch civil engineer from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Jamshedpur.
The second accused, identified as Raju Singh, was arrested from a guest house located at Hazaribagh’s Ramnagar locality under Katkamdag police station. He has been charged with helping Pankaj in the leak of the question paper. Raju Singh is the fourth person arrested from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand in the paper leak case.
The federal agency had earlier arrested 14 persons in connection with the case.
Sources said that Pankaj Kumar, a civil engineer, stole the question paper.
On Thursday last week, the CBI had arrested one of the key accused, Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky, a native of Nalanda district in Bihar.
Rocky has been accused of arranging solvers from Patna and Ranchi for the gang. He is stated to be a trusted member of the kingpin of the gang led by Sanjeev Kumar Singh alias Lutan Mukhiya alias Sanjeev Mukhiya.
Before Rocky’s arrest, the CBI had conducted raids at his Nalanda residence, but he was not found. On Friday last week, the Patna High Court granted custody of 13 accused persons, who were arrested earlier by Patna police before the case was handed over to the central probe agency.
To date, the CBI has arrested 42 persons from seven states in connection with the paper leak case.
