The federal investigation agency arrested Haque, Alam, after detailed interrogation, officials said. (Figurative)
New Delhi:
The CBI on Friday arrested the principal and vice-principal of a school in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, in connection with the NEET-UG paper leak case, officials said.
Ehsanul Haque, principal of Oasis School, has been appointed as Hazaribagh city coordinator for the medical entrance examination conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 5, they said.
Vice principal Imtiaz Alam has been posted as NTA observer and center coordinator at Oasis School, officials said, adding that the CBI is also questioning five more people from the district in connection with the paper leak case.
The federal investigation agency arrested Haque and Alam after detailed interrogation, they said.
Both the accused were investigated during an inquiry by the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police, which was probing the case earlier. The team had found burnt question papers of NEET-UG during a raid at a hideout of the troubleshooter gang, officials said.
In a statement, the EOU claimed that the “leaked” NEET-UG question paper was allegedly obtained from Oasis School in Hazaribagh by the notorious gang of Sanjeev Kumar alias Lutan Mukhiya.
He had said that investigators had matched a partially burnt questionnaire found at the Patna safe house with the reference questionnaire provided by the NTA, confirming the origin of the leak.
However, it could not be clearly established who was behind the alleged leak of documents, the officials said.
According to them, the investigation also showed that the Hazaribagh authorities did not properly follow the set guidelines for opening the questionnaire boxes.
In media interviews, Haque has maintained that the box containing the questionnaires could not be opened because its digital lock, which was supposed to unlock automatically, had failed.
After this, he contacted the NTA, which asked him to use a cutter to open the box, Haque claimed.
The boxes containing the questionnaires have two locks: a manual one that must be opened with a key and a cutter and a digital lock that opens with a beep 45 minutes before the exam.
The CBI has registered six FIRs in the NEET-UG paper leak case, including its own FIR on a reference from the Union Education Ministry and five from the states where it took over the investigation. The probe agency has taken over one case each in Bihar and Gujarat and three cases in Rajasthan.
The CBI on Thursday made its first arrests in the NEET-UG paper leak case, detaining two persons in Patna, while three candidates in Gujarat who had allegedly sought help to clear the exam recorded their statements with the probe agency.
NEET-UG is conducted by NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. This year’s exam was held on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 overseas. Over 23 lakh candidates appeared for the test.
The first CBI FIR was registered on Sunday, a day after the ministry announced that it would hand over the probe into alleged irregularities in the conduct of the exam to the central agency.
The demand for a CBI inquiry was raised by a section of protesting students.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)