NEET Exam 2024: Three Including Fake Candidate Arrested In Odisha’s Bhadrak

Bhadrak: Police have arrested three persons, including a dummy candidate who appeared for another examinee in the National Entrance and Eligibility Test (NEET) in a private school of Odisha’s Bhadrak.

The accused has been identified as Ankit Raj, a third-year medical college student from West Bengal’s Kolkata (the fake examinee). A middleman Aditya Kumar and his associate Rajesh Kumar Madhukar, who are both from Bihar, have also been nabbed in connection with the case.

According to sources, an invigilator at SBD International School in Bhadrak, where Ankit was appearing for the NEET exam on behalf of one Saswat Tripathy on Sunday, suspected foul play and alerted senior authorities about fake photograph on the admit card of the candidate. A proper probe was initiated during which the fingerprint scan of Ankit did not match with that on the Aadhaar card submitted by the NEET applicant.

Police investigation revealed that Saswat had contacted someone in Odisha to help him find a person who can write the exam for him in exchange of money. Aditya reached out to Rajesh, who stays in Bhubaneswar and coordinates college admissions. Rajesh contacted his aide Aditya Kumar in Bihar, who has a BAMS degree, to find  a bonafide candidate. Aditya contacted Ankit who was his classmate in BAMS and had subsequently joined MBBS course after appearing for NEET.

Ankit, who was from a poor family, agreed to appear in the exam for Saswat. The deal was finalised for Rs 10 lakh.

“During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that a deal of Rs 10 lakh was done between the real candidate and the middlemen to bring the fake candidate to write the examination for him. The fake candidate and two middlemen have been arrested,” Bhadrak Sub-Diisional Police Officer (SDPO) Sourabh Ota told the media.