NEW DELHI: CBI reached members of NEET-UG question paper leak gang by the providential recovery by Bihar Police of a partly burnt leaked question paper, which was a printout of a mobile phone photo of the question paper taken five hours before the examination on May 5 at Oasis School in Hazaribag.
Explaining the modus operandi adopted by the gang which hatched the conspiracy to leak the question paper 2-3 months before NEET-UG, solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that one Pankaj Kumar, in cahoots with the Oasis School centre superintendent, entered the strongroom through the back door around 8.02am on May 5 and was inside for an hour and 21 minutes.
He had a sophisticated toolkit which was kept inside the strongroom prior to his entry. After opening the trunks using the toolkit, he took pictures of the question paper booklet using a mobile phone and left the strongroom at 9.23am. Immediately, he sent it to one of his associates who took a printout and gave it to 7-8 solvers who made available solved question papers of botany and zoology at 10.15am and physics and chemistry at 10.40am.
None of the solvers were allowed to take mobile phones as the gang wanted to keep dissemination of the solved questions to a target group of 155 students, whose parents had paid advance token money. They had issued post-dated cheques, which would have been encased if the question paper matched with the leaked one, CBI said.
Since they wanted to monetise the leaked question paper without risking cancellation of the entire examination which would happen in case of a widespread leak, the target groups of students were gathered at pre-selected places in Patna and Hazaribag and were made to memorise the answers as much as possible in two hours.
After the examination, they attempted to burn the printout of the leaked question paper and destroyed the mobile phone used for taking photos of the questions and for transmitting from Hazaribag to Patna, CBI told the court. Each question paper has a unique code printed on it and the half burnt question paper, a photo of the original, led the CBI to Hazaribag and the gang members, additional director of CBI Krishna told the SC. He said 18 mobiles from fringe elements have been seized and sent for forensic examination.
On the petitioner’s allegation that the question paper was available on Telegram social media platform on May 4, the solicitor general told the court that the Telegram group, which posted the question paper, was created on May 6 and the question paper was uploaded on May 6-7 night a day after the examination. The group tampered with the timestamp on the Telegram post while uploading the question paper to create a false narrative that the question paper was leaked a day before the examination, Mehta said.
Explaining the modus operandi adopted by the gang which hatched the conspiracy to leak the question paper 2-3 months before NEET-UG, solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that one Pankaj Kumar, in cahoots with the Oasis School centre superintendent, entered the strongroom through the back door around 8.02am on May 5 and was inside for an hour and 21 minutes.
He had a sophisticated toolkit which was kept inside the strongroom prior to his entry. After opening the trunks using the toolkit, he took pictures of the question paper booklet using a mobile phone and left the strongroom at 9.23am. Immediately, he sent it to one of his associates who took a printout and gave it to 7-8 solvers who made available solved question papers of botany and zoology at 10.15am and physics and chemistry at 10.40am.
None of the solvers were allowed to take mobile phones as the gang wanted to keep dissemination of the solved questions to a target group of 155 students, whose parents had paid advance token money. They had issued post-dated cheques, which would have been encased if the question paper matched with the leaked one, CBI said.
Since they wanted to monetise the leaked question paper without risking cancellation of the entire examination which would happen in case of a widespread leak, the target groups of students were gathered at pre-selected places in Patna and Hazaribag and were made to memorise the answers as much as possible in two hours.
After the examination, they attempted to burn the printout of the leaked question paper and destroyed the mobile phone used for taking photos of the questions and for transmitting from Hazaribag to Patna, CBI told the court. Each question paper has a unique code printed on it and the half burnt question paper, a photo of the original, led the CBI to Hazaribag and the gang members, additional director of CBI Krishna told the SC. He said 18 mobiles from fringe elements have been seized and sent for forensic examination.
On the petitioner’s allegation that the question paper was available on Telegram social media platform on May 4, the solicitor general told the court that the Telegram group, which posted the question paper, was created on May 6 and the question paper was uploaded on May 6-7 night a day after the examination. The group tampered with the timestamp on the Telegram post while uploading the question paper to create a false narrative that the question paper was leaked a day before the examination, Mehta said.