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NEW DELHI : Three days into its probe, the CBI on Friday claimed it had cracked the NEET paper leak case with the arrest of a Pune-based professor, the “source” of the leak of the paper.
Professor P V Kulkarni, a domain expert in chemistry from Latur who has for years served on panels involved in setting the NEET question paper, was taken into custody from his residence in Pune, officials said.
“P V Kulkarni has been arrested at Pune after thorough interrogation,” a CBI spokesperson said.
Exploiting his privileged access to confidential material, Kulkarni hosted special coaching classes at his house in the last week of April and dictated to his students questions, options and answers which appeared in the NEET UG paper on May 3.
“During the last week of April, 2026, he had mobilised students, with the help of another accused namely Manisha Waghmare who was arrested on May 14 by CBI,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Students allegedly paid several lakh rupees to attend the sessions where they wrote the questions down in their notebooks and later “tallied exactly” with the actual NEET-UG paper conducted on May 3, the spokesperson said.
CBI teams probing the case have found the actual source of the leakage of the chemistry paper, as well as the middlemen involved in mobilising the students who paid several lakhs of rupees to attend the special coaching classes where these question banks were dictated and discussed, she said.
“In the last 24 hours, CBI has also conducted searches at several locations across the country and seized several incriminating documents, electronic gadgets and mobile phones,” the spokesperson said.
A detailed forensic and technical analysis of the seized items is going on, she said.
On Thursday, the agency arrested Dhananjay Lokhande from Ahilyanagar and his associate Manisha Waghmare from Pune.
The CBI found that Lokhande had received the paper from Waghmare and passed it on to Nashik-based Shubham Khairnar, who, in his turn, passed it on to Yash Yadav, who circulated it further, officials said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur — Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal — along with Yadav from Gurugram and Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly shared with Yadav 500 to 600 questions, ensuring enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from a NEET coaching in Rajasthan’s Sikar.
The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was struck for Rs 10 lakh, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find more NET aspirants to sell them the questions to recover some of the money, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres.
Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the National Testing Agency (NTA) across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the exam was held.
The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for “independent verification and necessary action.” (Agencies)
