Oasis school's rise, principal's Bali trip after NEET-UG under CBI lens

HAZARIBAG: CBI started digging Tuesday into the journey of Hazaribag’s Oasis School from humble beginnings in 2012, when it had only 17 students, to a thriving CBSE institution as new evidence purportedly emerged of its arrested principal Ehsanul Haque’s alleged shady dealings, culminating in him becoming a key figure in the NEET-UG paper leak.

The agency is investigating how the school expanded in the span of just over a decade and built infrastructure that many older institutions of the region can’t afford.

The CBI team, which has returned to Hazaribag from Patna, is also probing how the principal of a relatively new school earned CBSE’s trust to become its city coordinator for the NEET-UG test.

A coaching institute teacher believed to be an associate of Haque and his two arrested accomplices — vice principal Mohammad Imtiyaz Alam and journalist Jamaluddin —could be CBI’s next big catch, sources said.

Officials said that Haque made a trip to Bali in Indonesia a few weeks after the May 5 NEET-UG test, for which Oasis School was one of the designated centres in Jharkhand.

Investigators suspect the holiday starting June 11 was Haque’s “reward for a job done well”. He was questioned about the Bali trip when he was kept in a Jharkhand jail. “CBI is verifying his travel details, his spendings during the duration of the trip, and all bank transactions,” an official said.

CBI has already found information of Haque being in contact with the Bihar paper-leak gang. “His call details reveal connections with numerous individuals, necessitating a thorough investigation,” the official said.

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