New Delhi : NEET paper leak case ‘mastermind’ Pankaj Kumar acted in collusion with the principal and the vice principal of Oasis School in Hazaribagh to access the question paper hours before the commencement of the exam on May 5 and it was solved and sent to candidates who had hire his services, the CBI said on Thursday.

In a statement issued on its probe in the NEET paper leak case so far, the agency said Kumar, one of the alleged masterminds, acted in connivance with Oasis School Principal Ehsanul Haque, also the NTA City Coordinator, and Vice Principal Imtiaz Alam, who was the Centre Superintendent.

All three have been arrested by the agency, it said. The CBI said it could identify the centre using half burnt papers recovered from a hostel in Patna.

“The trunks containing the NEET UG 2024 question papers were brought to the school and kept in the control room in the morning of 05-05-2024. Minutes after the trunks arrived, the above said Principal and Vice Principal unauthorisedly and illegally allowed access to the room where the trunks were kept, to the mastermind named above. The sophisticated tools used to open the trunk and access the question papers from the trunk have been seized,” a CBI spokesperson said.

The paper was solved at Hazaribagh on the morning of examination by a set of solvers who are studying in MBBS courses at AIIMS Patna, RIMS Ranchi and a Medical College in Bharatpur. The agency has arrested seven alleged solvers.

“The solved paper was shared with certain selected students who paid money to the accused. All the solvers, who are MBBS students from reputed colleges, have been identified and most of them arrested. These solvers were specially brought to Hazaribagh as part of the conspiracy,” the CBI spokesperson said.

Other masterminds gang members who acted with Kumar have been identified and some of them arrested.

“This group was actively assisted by a set of accused persons who arranged places for housing the candidates, another set of accused were involved in mobilising and ferrying the candidates. The candidates who gained access to the solved question paper are being traced and necessary action is being taken,” the CBI has said.

The agency has so far arrested 36 persons, he said.  In a major setback to unsuccessful aspirants of NEET-UG 2024, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the pleas seeking cancellation and re-test of the controversy-ridden exam, holding that there was no evidence on record to conclude that it was “vitiated” on account of “systemic breach” of its sanctity.

The court, however, said the fact that the leak of question paper indeed took place in Hazaribagh and Patna is “not in dispute”, and referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation’s status report to say that “155 students drawn from the exam centres at Hazaribagh and Patna appeared to be the beneficiaries of the fraud”.