Three hours before the NEET-UG examination on May 5, an unknown informer's tip-off about four suspected criminals in an SUV heading to a 'safe' house, led the Patna police to the starting point of the NEET-UG case.
According to a report by The Times of India, the four suspects were intercepted by a team of Patna's Shastri Nagar police station. The suspects led the police team to a place where a meeting was being held of 30 NEET-UG candidates who allegedly paid Rs 30-35 lakh for leaking the questions/answers of the examination.
According to TOI, all the members in the meeting arrived at a location chosen in Ram Krishna Nagar to memorise the answers, a day earlier to the exam date.
Police said they cracked the case and found dozens of names of medical candidates and their 'agents' or 'handlers'.
The publication quoted the Economic Offences Unit as saying, "It's a deep-rooted network spread across states. We will need time to rein in all the culprits."
According to the publication, the four suspected criminals who were held in Patna, were assigned to help the NEET-UG candidates in memorising the answers to the exam questions in the night and then drop the candidates at their designated examination centres.
"The tip-off turned out to be precise - just what we didn't expect it would lead to a Pandora's box linked to NEET-UG. We worked hard on the case and pieced together each clue. The results are there for all to see, although there is still a long way to go," SHO Shastri Nagar police station, Amar Kumar told the publication.
About 13 roll numbers were found by the police in their raids, which also led to the case's first arrests.
Four candidates were picked by multiple police teams which were formed to check the NEET exam centres, and followed by their interrogation, the police got nine more names, including one Sikandar Yadavendu, who is a junior engineer in Danapur municipal council. He is accused of supplying the question paper and answers to the candidates on May 4.
The police had also recovered burnt question papers from Yadavendu's flat on May 6.
Yadavendu along with two others - Nitish Kumar and Amit Anand - were arrested by the police after they confessed to leaking the exam question paper.
A police official told TOI that Nitish and Amit received the NEET-UG question paper from a NEET examination centre at Hazaribagh on May 4 through WhatsApp.
An official told the publication, "Photocopies of the question papers were given to the candidates and they were told to memorise the answers. The provided questions papers were then collected the next morning and burnt."
During their raids, the police said that they seized various incriminating documents, cash and electronic devices used in the NEET-UG scam.