From Ranjit Don to Ravi Atri, how NEET leak Bihar kingpin Sanjiv Mukhiya colluded with exam scammers

PATNA: Sanjiv Mukhiya, the Nalanda horticulture college employee identified as one of the absconding perpetrators of the NEET-UG paper leak in Bihar, is a repeat offender with a network of collaborators that includes the arrested kingpin of a UP "solver gang", investigators revealed Wednesday.

Mukhiya, it transpired, unofficially took time off from his job as a technical assistant at the state-run Noorsarai Horticulture College in Nalanda from May 6 to 14 and got himself admitted to a hospital. He went missing after word got out about his alleged role in the paper leak ahead of the May 5 test. Sources in the Economic Offences Unit said Mukhiya had links with Ravi Atri, who was jailed in Meerut after being arrested in April for the police constable recruitment exam paper leak.

Suspected mastermind Mukhiya didn't report for duty on day of NEET-UG test
Officials at Noorsarai Horticulture College said Mukhiya didn't report for duty on the day of the NEET-UG test and has been marked as absent without authorised leave since.

In his response to a notice from the college on May 18, he claimed to have been hospitalised on May 6 due to a sudden illness. He requested leave until June 5, totalling 31 days. The college wrote back with queries to which he was supposed to respond within three days.

The institute's office superintendent Pranay Kumar Pankaj said, "Mukhiya has been posted in the college for seven years. When we heard he was a suspect in the NEET-UG paper leak, we summoned him through another letter on June 20, but received no response." Pankaj mentioned that an EOU team visited the campus for questioning.

A senior EOU official said Mukhiya previously collaborated with Ranjit Don, the alleged mastermind of several paper leaks from the 1990s till early 2000. Mukhiya allegedly branched out after Ranjit joined politics. "Mukhiya operated as a link between candidates' parents, middlemen, handlers and the solver gang. The NEET-UG question papers are suspected to have been leaked from a centre in Hazaribagh. The principal of a school, the centre observer, superintendent and others are under the scanner," an official said. The absconding franchise of a courier company in Hazaribagh is also under scrutiny.

A special CBI court in Patna Wednesday remanded two of the arrested accused in the agency's custody for three days. Baldev Kumar, alias Chintu, and Mukesh Kumar, have been linked to the Lutan Mukhia gang.

The CBI registered an FIR in the case on June 23, based on a directive from the Union education ministry.

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