One of the accused arrested in connection with the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) hacking case helped his “girlfriend” clear the examination, the chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police has revealed. The exam was held in December, 2016 to admit students into postgraduate medical courses.
According to the chargesheet, accessed by The Indian Express, a tout who has been arrested, Abhishek Singh, told police in his statement that he was asked by the accused, Atul Vats, to help his girlfriend clear the exam.
Vats, a native of Patna, has been lodged in Tihar Jail since his arrest on April 10 this year. He is accused of working with the absconding accused, Ankur Mishra, to identify students who would be willing to pay money for a good rank. “Agents charged between Rs 60-90 lakh (for admission), while I charged Rs 30-40 lakh,” he told police.
“In 2003, Vats shifted to Delhi for IIT coaching, and later moved to Rajasthan’s Kota for further coaching. He appeared in the AIEEE in 2006 from Delhi. He secured rank 9,600 and secured admission in Computer Science at Patna’s National Institute of Technology. After completing his B.Tech in 2010, he again shifted to Delhi and started preparing for MBA via correspondence from the Institute of Management. In 2011, he appeared for the MBA exam. As he scored a low percentage, he could not get admission,” police said in the chargesheet.
In his statement to police, Vats said he and a friend, Deepak, had opened a centre — Preparation Zone — for IIT and medical entrance coaching in Bihar, where he taught physics and organic chemistry.
“After facing financial losses, he closed the centre and started preparing for government exams such as SSC, banking and UPSC. In 2014, he was selected as a Probationary Officer (PO) in UCO bank, but quit a year later as he was not satisfied with his job. He began preparing for exams once again. Around this time, his family members cut all contact with him for around two years,” a senior police officer said, adding that he met several touts to ‘fraudulently’ secure admission to management colleges.
Vats told police that later, the touts asked him to arrange proxy candidates (called solvers) for the Bank PO exam. “With their help, around 12 students cleared the exam. But once the biometric system was introduced, it became hard for them. They later met Mishra, a site supervisor of Indo Global College of Engineering in Chandigarh, and a adopted new strategy to crack the system — by switching off CCTV cameras,” an officer said.
