A view of the CBI office complex, in New Delhi. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday (November 22, 2024) filed the fifth chargesheet against five accused in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2024 question paper theft case. The chargesheet was filed at the special court for CBI cases in Patna.
In its official statement, the Central agency stated that the chargesheet was filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 109 (abetment), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 380 (theft), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and under Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018).
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The five accused are Amit Kumar Singh, resident of Dhanbad, Jharkhand; Sudip Kumar and Yuvraj Kumar, residents of Bokaro, Jharkhand; Abhimanyu Patel, resident of Nalanda, Bihar; and Amit Kumar, resident of Patna. With this, the number of chargesheeted accused in the case stands at 45, all held in judicial custody.
The CBI had earlier filed four chargesheets on August 1, September 19, October 5, and November 7 against 40 other accused. The agency took over the investigation from the Shastri Nagar police station in Patna on June 23.
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Names of candidates who allegedly were beneficiaries of the paper theft and names of MBBS students who had solved the stolen paper or had appeared in the exam as impersonators have already been identified and shared with the National Testing Agency (NTA) and Ministry of Education.
The investigations revealed that a NEET-UG 2024 question paper was illegally accessed from Oasis School, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, on May 5 in the morning by Pankaj Kumar, who acted in connivance with Oasis School principal Ahsanul Haque, also the city NTA coordinator, and vice-principal Muhammad Imtiyaz Alam, who was the centre superintendent.
The Central agency had earlier stated that trunk boxes containing NEET-UG question papers were brought to the school and kept in the control room in the morning of May 5, the day of the test. Minutes after the trunks arrived, the principal and vice-principal allowed alleged mastermind in the Bihar paper leak case, Mr. Pankaj Kumar, to access the room. Sophisticated tools used to open the trunk and access the question papers were also seized, the Central agency said.
During the investigation, it was found that Mr. Haque and Mr. Alam conspired with other accused to steal the question paper.
Published – November 22, 2024 08:27 pm IST