‘Solvers’ who can crack tests at the core of paper leaks

As the Supreme Court discusses the grave possibility of cancelling the NEET-UG examinations after allegations that the crucial paper was compromised in states ranging from Bihar to Gujarat, the focus is on the modus operandi of what is a rampant paper leak industry across India.

HT’s conversations with multiple stakeholders across Bihar, New Delhi and Haryana—both investigators and “solvers” themselves, have shown that there are essentially three levels to any paper leak. The first are organised gangs who find ways to get access to question papers before examination day— tracking down couriers, breaking open what are meant to be secure trunks. The third are “education consultants”--the men that find aspirants willing to risk it all and pay huge amounts of money to circumvent the system. But in between, there are “solvers”--the crucial go between; people that have the ability and nous to crack these question papers; but use their talents to solve illegally procured tests days before they are actually scheduled, and coach those that look to subvert the system. Sometimes, with the right inducements, they even impersonate candidates and take exams on their behalf.

Take, for instance, 27-year-old Shubham Mandal. The son of a Bihar government employee, Mandal grew up at the Officers Colony in Patna’s Khagaul, studying at the St Karen School in the city. Bihar police officials said that while Mandal was not a “topper”, he was certainly bright, and wanted to be a doctor. By the mid 2010’s, Mandal was a student training to be a surgeon at the Nalanda Medical College.

In college, Mandal met Dr Shiv Kumar in 2016, the son of Sandeep Mukhia—a government officer ostensibly employed as a technical assistant at a horticulture college in Nalanda, but the kingpin behind a well-oiled network, called the Lutan Mukhia gang, that successfully leaked the NEET-UG examination in Bihar. By 2017, Mandal was arrested, for his role in the leak of that year’s Bihar staff selection commission examination. He started off as a solver and then moved up. “Mandal was a bright student and approached to solve question papers by the gang. Mandal and Shiv Kumar, who is in jail for a separate paper leak case, were both medical students and solvers. Eventually, even though he was in and out of jail, he graduated breaking the seals of question papers so deftly that it was almost impossible to spot. He had jobs in between, even serving at a public healthcare centre in Katihar, but the leak industry was too lucrative to give up. In 2024, when the UP police constable examination was leaked, he was especially flown to Ahmedabad from where the question papers were leaked from the warehouse of a courier company. But his initiation into the gang, was first as a solver,”one of the officials added.

The impersonators

Senior police officials said that there are essentially two large brackets within which “solvers” can be categorised. The first are those who impersonate aspirants inside examination halls, sometimes with early access to question papers, but often without.

In some cases, police officials that have investigated such cases said, these solvers work independently—contacted by prospective students individually—and work outside the contours of more established criminal gangs. The second, are solvers who are given the question papers, solve them, and are then often tasked with teaching these answers to prospective aspirants.

In June 2024, the Delhi and Bihar police arrested at least two medical students who were paid between ₹4 and 10 lakh to write the NEET-UG by impersonating “original candidates.” The two men—Krishan Kesarwani and Sumit Mandolia—had both cleared NEET themselves; the former got 645 marks and the latter 570. Kesarwani, Delhi police officials said, was a first year student at a government college in Uttarakhand, while Mandolia was a second year MBBS student at a government college in West Bengal. “We did not find their involvement or links with those who leak question papers. They were paid money by two men who run an education consultancy,” a Delhi police officer said.

One “solver” who HT met in Patna and who has successfully evaded capture for several years said “impersonating someone is always risky, unless the examination centre itself is fully managed. This mostly happens in remote areas. The centre’s superintendent or the school owner are managed, and allow impersonators to take exam instead of scholars.” He said that he had appeared fraudulently in at least 12 competitive examinations , beginning in 2010. “I used to go to the central library in Patna, where I got in touch with a member of a gang. I took the government Group D examination in 2012 for an SC/ST candidate and got paid ₹50,000. I have been doing it ever since,” this person added.

The solvers

The more elaborate architecture, where all three levers of the criminal gangs —those that gain access to the paper, the education consultants that bring prospective clients, and the solvers that decipher the leaked question paper— coalesce, requires a much larger syndicate in operation. Officials of the Bihar Police who investigated the leak of the now cancelled Bihar Public Service Commission Teachers Recruitment Examination in March 2024 said that candidates and solvers were both taken to the Kohinoor Banquet Hall in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh. In a statement to the police, Abhishek Kumar, who was the man in the chain who leaked the paper said, “I got the question paper, and at the Kohinoor Banquet Hall, I made 170-180 copies and gave it to them. Inside the hall, I saw there were around 400-500 solver teachers and students present. The students were then made to memorise the answers.”

In the NEET case, leaked a day before the national examination was held on May 5, the “safe house” was the hostel of the Learn Play School, shut since the pandemic induced lockdown in 2020. The location was picked with caution. The hostel is in the Nandlal Chapra area of Patna, two kilometres away from the main road, 10 kilometres away from the Patna railway station, and relatively secluded. There is only one house in the narrow lane opposite the hostel, home to a couple with one child. “There was very little cause for concern that somebody would raise an alarm about two dozen students spending the night inside the defunct school,” a second Bihar police officer said.

In the hostel itself, the building caretaker Ashutosh Kumar, arrested by CBI, lives on rent with his family on the first floor. Kumar had been contacted by Manish Kumar, also arrested by CBI, and coaxed into allowing the gang to use the premises on the night of May 4.

The second Bihar officer added: “The solvers basically double up as teachers in these cases. In some competitive examinations, there are multiple-choice answers. In the Bihar Staff Selection Commission paper leak, the solvers had prepared a code for each aspirant to mug up. Those who could memorise the whole answer sheet in a day did that. Others copied the answers and took them into the examination centre with chits“.

And it isn’t just Bihar.

The problem everywhere

Bijender Singh, 32 grew up in a village in Jhajjhar, Haryana dreaming like many young men around him, of a career in the security forces. It is a goal he accomplished—becoming a CRPF sub-inspector in 2016. Yet Singh is also a man that the Haryana Police constantly tracks ; the head of a solver syndicate who has six criminal cases against him; has spent time in jail; and since September 2023, is out on bail.

Speaking to HT, Singh said he grew up in a family of farmers, in a village where young men train on the roads early in the morning, preparing to become either police officers, or paramilitary personnel, or members of the Indian Army. “My father wanted me to be in the police because families all around us have their sons in the Delhi or Haryana police. For a while, I worked hard to achieve their dream,” Singh said.

He finished class 10 from a state government school in his village in 2010, and then moved to Jhajjhar for high school, passing his class 12 examinations with over 90% marks. Two years later, he moved to Delhi where he studied BA Pass at college in Delhi University.

But even before he did, Singh had already taken his first steps into a life of crime. “I topped the district in the examinations, and people started approaching me to help them in 2012. At first, I wasn’t aware they were leaked papers. They told me they were mock papers for practice, and they took me to a private school where I solved them sitting inside the principal’s office. I was paid ₹10,000 at the time. The money was an attraction,” Singh said.

By 2013, Singh had earned a reputation for himself. He could solve question papers for board examinations, defence services, railways, Haryana government entrances, the Delhi and Haryana police examinations. “I kept getting paid more money, and my earnings soared to over ₹60 lakh a year,” he said.

In 2016, Singh took one examination for himself, and cleared the entrance examination, and the medical checks for entry into the Central Reserve Police Force, fulfilling a childhood dream. “But after that, I realised this is not what I wanted to do. Even when in service, I continued to be a solver, and was connected with gangs who paid me to live a dream life,” he said. By 2018, Singh resigned from the CRPF, and made exam-paper leaks a full-time career.

Three years later, in 2021, Singh was caught appearing for a candidate in an examination for entrance into the Haryana police constabulary. A case was registered at the Karnal city police station, and in the years since, several cases have been lodged against him. “We call aspiring candidates three days before the exam and help them with the question paper. Then solvers prepare them thoroughly, ensuring they can complete the paper within the given time period. We have three teachers from Bihar that are our backbone. They charge ₹50 lakh per visit, and since we have to ensure they live on the outskirts of a village with very meagre facilities for secrecy, their fee is high,” Singh said.

But Singh’s impunity also comes from the one, often unspoken, truth that lurks in the shadows. His operations over the years have meant that several candidates that have thus cheated their way through the process, are now serving government officials. “They help me out of fear that I could expose them and jeopardise their jobs,” he said.

NH Khan, additional director general of the Economic Offence Unit of the Bihar Police admitted, “During our investigations, the names of government employees and bank staff have surfaced. Some of them are solvers themselves, using their time off to earn extra money.”

But its not easy money, claims Bijender Singh, the man at odds with the law who insists solving is a serious business. “I have to study to keep myself updated. I have a reputation to maintain.”