Following reports that a widely circulated “guess paper” contained 120 questions identical to those in the actual NEET-UG 2026 exam, the Rajasthan Special Operations Group (SOG) tracked the chain of events to identify the source of the leak. The medical entrance test, conducted on May 3, was annulled on Tuesday.
“After receiving the tip-off, our senior officers arrived in Sikar,” a senior SOG official told HT on Tuesday, as the CBI simultaneously launched its investigation, identifying the major test-preparation centre in Rajasthan as one of the primary locations under scrutiny.
According to an officer involved in the investigation who spoke to HT on condition of anonymity, additional director general of police Vishal Bansal, inspector general Ajay Pal Lamba, and additional superintendent of police Prakash Sharma arrived in Sikar, while other teams totaling 150 officers also began collecting information on who accessed the soft copy of the ‘guess’ paper on WhatsApp and how many people viewed it.
“We were able to identify the individual who first received the handwritten physical copy of the guess paper, but locating him within just five days was a difficult task,” the officer said. The police became aware of the malpractice on May 7, as did the National Testing Agency (NTA). The individual concerned was taken into custody by police in Nashik, Maharashtra, on Tuesday, May 12.
How paper circulated
According to another senior police official, Shubham Khairnar, a final-year Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) student, allegedly acquired a printed set of 120 National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) questions as a “guess paper” and began distributing its digital copies via WhatsApp. He is reported to have sent the digital copy to a person in Gurugram, Haryana, who then circulated it to multiple cities across Rajasthan, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, and other regions.
The investigation officer stated, "Just the night before the exam, the question paper was circulated to nearly every student via WhatsApp, making it challenging for us to determine who had received it and who had not."
How matter came to light
Four days after the exam, several students and an employee of a coaching centre from Sikar contacted the NTA to report a suspected leak, following which the NTA referred the matter to the Rajasthan police.
In its investigation prior to the CBI taking charge, the Rajasthan Police’s SOG located Khairnar, who was in direct contact with a suspected gang responsible for leaking the main question paper, and also identified intermediaries who bought the paper from one another and further distributed it.
‘New type of leak’
This represents a completely new method of leaking an exam paper. Until now, we have seen paper leak rackets take money from candidates, solve the paper, meet them in person, and make them memorise it. This time, however, the group leaked the paper, compiled a handwritten ‘guess paper’ of 410 questions that included 120 from the actual exam, and sold it to an individual who then further circulated it on social media, said an officer familiar with the details of the investigation.
Up to now, we have identified Khairnar as the person who received the handwritten hard copy of the paper. However, an investigation is underway to determine whether anyone else obtained a similar physical copy from the gang, he said.The SOG has also been probing coaching centres in Jaipur, Sikar, and Kota.
How ‘private mafia’ was traced
In the early phase of its investigation, after conducting a thorough search in Sikar, the SOG reached Gurugram, where they identified an individual who had initially circulated the paper to some students in Sikar via WhatsApp.
The circulation primarily spread out from Sikar. There was also a WhatsApp group called 'Private Mafia' through which it was sold to many people. Numerous students obtained it for free from their friends and coaching institutes. After locating the person in Gurugram, we were able to easily track down Khairnar in Nashik and informed the Maharashtra police to begin questioning him. The CBI is now fully prepared to take him into custody," the officer added. The SOG has so far questioned over 20 people.
