Q-leak case: Mukhiya worked in nexus with politicians, hired doctors to solve questions

The grilling of arrested Sanjeev Kumar Singh alias Sanjiv Mukhiya, the mastermind behind the leak of questions papers of a number of competitive exams including that of NEET-UG, has opened a Pandora’s Box, exposing an organised racket and links of politicians with criminals. Mukhia, according to investigation, worked at several levels in nexus with criminals and politicians and kept evading arrests due to such proximity to power.

In the NEET-UG case, the CBI and the Bihar police have so far arrested 46 persons, including Mukhiya. “Of them 28 were arrested by the Economic Offence Unit (EOU) and the Patna police, while the rest were arrested by the CBI. The line of investigation of the CBI is similar to the one adopted by the Patna police. The CBI has, however, collected a lot of new evidences, including technology and digital evidences, on its own to track the movement of the accused,” said a police officer.

Modus Operandi

The officer said that Mukhiya’s arrest was crucial as he was the kingpin and responsible for making the strategy for question leak and involving tech-savvy youth, who operated at the second layer to carry out the operation by reaching out to the stake holders and arranging the logistics.

“The third layer of the network comprised the coaching institutes and the parents desperate to get their wards into medical colleges at any cost. The fourth layer involved printing press and exam centres to have access to question papers and ensure delivery at the designated places on time and with precision. The fourth layer managed the printing press and exam centres,” said the police officer involved in interrogation.

The investigation has so far revealed that those entrusted with the responsibility of solving the questions in minimum time and with accuracy included mostly pass out doctors, who worked for Mukhiya either for money or under pressure. They were provided all sorts of technological assistance.

On his modus operandi, Mukhiya told the EOU officials that barring some competitive exams conducted by premier agencies and which have more safeguards and security features, it was easy to manage all. “In case of premier agencies, it is difficult and requires more money. Else, it is managed at the level of question paper storage, question setting and transportation, administration, teachers, centre superintendents or supervisors, whichever works at that moment,” he added.

Mukhiya worked with foolproof mechanism, keeping phone numbers, blank cheques and educational certificates of the students. “The payment was done in the bank accounts of Mukhiya’a associates. He preferred cash payment through hawala transactions. He said that he took payment from clients in one go. The rates are fixed -- ₹40 lakh for NEET, ₹20 lakh for teachers’ exam and ₹15 lakh for constables. For NEET, the rate fluctuates according to demand,” he told interrogators.

The EOU revealed the modus operandi of the mafias while probing the question leak of the third phase of teachers’ recruitment test (TRE), conducted by the BPSC. The gang members involved in the paper leak case had breached the security chain from printing press to transportation level to get the papers.

According to earlier EOU investigation, the question leak was carried out through a well-hatched plan to lay hands on the sealed questions during their transit from the printing press, scan them through specialised tools and then hand them over to their clients for hefty monetary consideration.

“The arrested accused had admitted that they first collect information about the press where printing of questions takes place and the mode of transportation. Then they lure some officials on good monetary consideration to lay hands on question papers during transit. Once the questions are scanned, they are provided to solvers and from them they reach the targeted group, who are kept at a pre-determined place and made to mug the answers,” EOU ADG NH Khan had said earlier.

The ADG had said in case of TRE-3, the accused admitted that they got to know of transportation of the question papers through DTDC Courier. The mafia touch with a Munshi with the Patna-based Zenith Logistics Company Ltd courier company. They scan question papers while in transit from Patna to Nawada. As soon as the question papers were despatched from DTDC courier for Nawada, stopped at Buddha Family Restaurant, Nagarnausa in Nalanda.

How paper was leaked

The question of how the NEET paper was leaked led the EOU team to Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, with the serial code on the seized papers from Patna, leading to examination centre at the Oasis School. “We traced the box and envelope in which the T3 set of the papers was dispatched from the examination centre. Preliminary investigations showed it was torn at the back, and resealed to resemble an original sheet. The two boxes in which the question papers were transported to the examination centre also found tampered,” said an EoU official.

“Our suspicions have grown after we found that the latches and hinges had been tampered with as well as the seal. The envelopes inside the boxes had also been tampered with from the rear end, while the upper portion was intact. We have sent all this evidence to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL),” the officer said.

In a chargesheet, probing agency (CBI) has alleged that trunks carrying NEET-UG 2024 question papers were delivered to the Oasis School in Hazaribagh and stored in a control room on the morning of May 5. Shortly after the trunks’ arrival, Dr. Ahsanul Haque, Oasis school Principal-cum-city coordinator and Md. Imtiyaz Alam, Vice-Principal-cum-centre superintendent of Oasis School, permitted one Pankaj Kumar, one of the masterminds, to access the control room where the trunks were kept, the CBI has alleged. Pankaj, used sophisticated tools to open the trunks and access the question papers, CBI said. The agency has seized these tools along with CCTV footage from the room.

Political ambition

In his long interrogation under police remand, Mukhiya said that he got into the question paper leak to amass enough wealth so that he could get his wife elected to the Harnaut assembly segment or to the Parliament from Nalanda, said a police officer familiar with the matter.

“He is determined to get his wife elected at any cost to establish her in politics, as that would be the best way to wriggle out of all the court cases and controversies surrounding him. He tried in 2020 also, but his wife, who served as mukhiya after winning in 2016 to give her husband the ‘mukhiya’ title, lost from Harnaut, but finished second. She had polled nearly 40000 votes. He wanted to himself dabble in politics, but knows that it would not be easy due to the cases hounding him,” he added.

During interrogation, Mukhiya was candid in admitting how desperate he was to get his wife established in politics. “Had she fought the Assembly election as an independent candidate, she could have won due to the support of the Kurmi voters. Fighting election requires a lot of money and after his wife lost, he said that he spread his network to tamper with other exams like Constable recruitment, teachers’ recruitment, besides NEET, as he could easily access the questions papers due to his clout,” the officer said.

Mukhiya is, however, not the first from Nalanda to nurse political ambition through exam tampering route. Before him, Kumar Suman Singh alias Ranjit Don, the mastermind behind a spate of question paper leak scandals, fought the 2004 Lok Sabha election from as an independent candidate while still in jail and though he lost, he still managed to get over 60000 votes.

Ranjit Don, who was arrested by the CBI for his alleged role in leaking question papers of CAT, AIIMS and CBSE entrance examinations in 2003 and remained in jail for nearly one-and-a-half years, continued his political pursuit and contested the 2005 Bihar assembly elections from Hilsa as an LJP candidate but was again defeated. He also lost in 2015 when he was fielded by the LJP in the biennial elections to the Legislative Council.