Bihar govt college staffer under lens as NEET probe intensifies

The Bihar Economic Offences Unit (EOU) is zeroing in on 53-year-old Sanjiv Mukhia, a technical assistant at a government college in Nalanda, who officials believe is one of the masterminds in the alleged leak of the NEET-UG question paper.

Mukhia, Bihar police investigators said, is the central figure of a gang that operates across states to earn money by compromising competitive examinations, and has been arrested once before by the Uttarakhand Police in 2016. His son, Shiv Kumar, is currently in Beur jail, arrested from Ujjain for the alleged leak of the Bihar Public Service Commission Teacher Recruitment Examination in April 2024.

Mukhia had applied for anticipatory bail before a Patna district and sessions court on June 4, which deferred the hearing to July 4 on Friday. Senior police officers said that they raided Mukhia’s home in Nagarnausa village of Nalanda on Friday, but he was not there.

A police officer said that they were searching various locations on the basis of tip-offs about him. “We are hopeful of catching him over the next few days. We are keeping a tab on him,” he added.

On May 4, a day before the NEET examination was held, the Bihar Police had recovered admit cards, post-dated cheques and educational certificates following raids at a hostel in the state capital, acting on a tip off that the question paper of the examination had been leaked. Over the next few days, the state police arrested 13 people in the case, including four examinees, who were allegedly being trained to solve the question paper that they had allegedly procured, under sections of criminal conspiracy and breach of trust.

Mukhia is the only accused named in the FIR who is yet to be arrested.

The Economic Offences Unit of the Bihar Police took over the probe on May 11.

One senior police officer who is in charge of investigations in the case said that they have been trailing Mukhia since May 6, but he has been absconding from his place of work — a government college in Nalanda where he is posted as a technical assistant, and his known residences.

A resident of Nagarnausa in Nalanda, Mukhia has been under the police scanner in such cases previously. He was arrested by the Uttarakhand Police in 2016 on charges of leaking the NEET paper. He spent 14 months in Nainital jail, and was released on bail in 2018.

The officer said that Mukhia was the kingpin of what they call the “Solver Gang”, which has links in multiple states such as Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar. “It is Mukhia who arranged the NEET question paper and handed it over in turn to a man identified as Rocky, who we are looking into. But we still don’t know where the question paper was leaked and how exactly,” the officer said.

Bihar police officers said that Mukhia’s son, Shiv Kumar, was arrested from Ujjain on April 20 this year for his role in the paper leak of the BPSC TRE competitive examination held in Bihar, which 375,000 students sat for.

In the 2024 NEET case, investigations have thus far revealed that at least four students and their parents paid money to procure the question paper a day before the examination, and then memorised the answers.

Interrogations have pointed to a group of people who facilitated the process, including government official Sikander Prasad Yadvendu, junior engineer of the Danapur Nagar Parishad, Amit Anand, a Bengaluru-based IT professional, Roshan Kumar and Nitish Kumar, who are close associates of Anand.

Akhilesh Kumar, the father of Ayush Kumar — both arrested — has told police that Sikandar Prasad Yadvendu had assured him of success and demanded ₹40 lakh.

Similarly, Reena Kumar, the mother of Anurag Yadav had received assurances from Yadvendu, who also arranged their meeting with Amit Anand and Nitish Kumar.

A police officer aware of the matter said that Mukhia’s name surfaced during interrogation and he was the one who made the questions available.