NEET paper leak prime accused Sanjeev Mukhiya arrested
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (UG) paper leak prime accused Sanjeev Mukhiya was arrested by Economic Offences Unit team, Patna, the officials said on Friday.
The EOU team arrested Mukhiya on Thursday (April 24, 2025) night, said Naiyar Hussain Khan, Additional Director General, Bihar Economic Offences Unit.
On April 9, Bihar Police declared a reward of ₹3 lakh for information leading to the arrest of Sanjeev Mukhia, a key accused in the NEET-UG paper leak case.
Earlier in October last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed the chargesheet in the NEET paper theft case in Patna, before the Special Judge Court for CBI, Patna.
The investigation revealed that the NEET UG 2024 question paper was stolen from the control room of OASIS School in Hazaribagh on May 5. The theft occurred after the trunks containing the question papers arrived from the bank vault.
Also Read | CBI arrests MBBS student from Jharkhand's Ranchi in NEET-UG paper leak case
According to the CBI, the accused, Pankaj Kumar, was allowed entry into the control room by the school's Principal, Ahsanul Haque, and Vice Principal, Imtiyaz Alam.
"The accused Pankaj Kumar was clandestinely allowed entry into the control room by Ahsanul Haque, the Principal, and Imtiyaz Alam, the Vice Principal of the school, as part of the conspiracy. Pankaj Kumar tampered with the hinges of the trunk containing the question papers, removed one question paper, photographed all its pages, replaced the paper and resealed the trunk, and exited the control room," the CBI stated.
Following this, the solved question papers were then distributed to the candidates present at the Raj Guest House, Hazaribagh. Further, the solved question paper was scanned and sent digitally to predetermined locations where the members of the accused gang received it.
Only those who paid in advance could enter these locations. After their exams, the candidates were prohibited from taking any printed copies with them.
The CBI found half-burnt pieces of the question paper at Learn Play School, Patna, which led them to OASIS School, the CBI added in the release.
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Edward Said, through his theory of Orientalism (1978), suggests that one of the modes of upkeep of a lopsided power dynamic between an oppressor and the oppressed is the synthesis of a romanticised and 'exoticised' image of the oppressed through a process which he calls 'orientalism'. The chief characteristic of orientalism is that it establishes prejudices about and against the oppressed via their cultural representations which are synthesised and presented by the oppressor themselves. This representation determines the power dynamic between the two classes as they engage. While Said's own work revolves around the specific dichotomy of the West and the East, this theory can no doubt be transplanted into this mainland-periphery relationship within India, and its historically lopsided unfolding. Until his wife's arrest, the public discourse around the Indore man's murder predictably saw the demonisation of Meghalaya, and the Northeast as a whole, as 'non-tourism-friendly', 'unsafe for outsiders', 'crime-prone', ' jungalee ' and 'brainwashed by Christian missionaries'. These accusations were ironically and arrogantly prefaced by the claim that the region is heavily tourism dependent. The Northeast has historically been treated as an exotic amalgam of the mystical, the natural and of 'simple-minded and backward' tribes by the mainland. Of course, there has not been any true engagement with the people of these lands – be it from podcasters accusing women from Mayong of turning men into goats, or Bollywood, where films show 'NE' written on the registration plates of vehicles in a film about, and set vaguely, in the Northeast. It is this exoticisation – now optimised through the powers of social media – that has triggered the idea that the Northeast is, or if not, that it must become a 'tourist destination'. Having lived in Meghalaya for a significant portion of my own life as an 'outsider', I find this idea nothing more than a clandestine attempt towards breaking the spirit of the Meghalayan people and their right to self-determination on economic and political terms. It also quite clearly contradicts the tangible realities of the state. As prominent literature about the region, such as Sanjoy Hazarika's Strangers of the Mist (2000) suggests, having been significantly starved of the ointment of social, political and economic attention unlike the country's mainland, the Northeast is recovering from the pangs of British imperialist plunder at a much slower pace than the former. This is one of the catalysts of dissent amongst various peoples of the Northeast against the Indian state itself. Also read: An Open Letter: 'I Have Small Eyes, Mr Prime Minister' Even without accounting for armed secessionist movements, and within the constitutional fold itself, there are indications that the region craves a more equitable protection of cultural and linguistic rights in face of continuing threats of their erasure, along with demographic changes. In Meghalaya, these include demands for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) system that makes the tracking of entry and egress of non-residents of the state a more transparent (and perhaps complicated) process. There is also a longstanding organised dissent against the Union government's railway extension plans into the state, led by major political organisations such as the Khasi Student's Union (KSU). Moreover, much of the state's and region's public memory retains the historically proven idea that the reaction of the Indian state to these concerns has generally been that of violence. In recent times, this has been coupled with a significant insecurity regarding the mainland-centric Hindutva agenda of reimagining 'tribality' as an offshoot of Hindutva, to make political inroads into the peripheral state. Speaking of Meghalaya as a 'tourist hotspot' is in the same ballpark as Donald Trump's declaration about 'wanting to turn Gaza into a luxurious tourist spot', and the frequent mentions of 'tourism' in post-Article 370 Kashmir. One senses a re-packaged imposition of the mainland's interests over the right of the Northeastern people to make their own political and economic, and therefore cultural, decisions. In fact, the almost neo-colonial characteristic of travel-influencing in the Northeast is palpable in people's phone screens now, as reach-hungry vloggers 'discover the undiscovered' with every other video, no differently from how Columbus 'discovered' America. 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Similarly, in another incident in June, 2025, a local man was physically attacked by a group of intoxicated tourists from Uttar Pradesh. And yet, in these cases, national – and local –reports have had the decency to not speculate such incidents as indicators of stereotypical characteristics of tourists visiting the state. Meghalaya need not be at the beck and call of its tourism industry for its prosperity. There is no precondition to its existence that compels its people to turn every inch of their homeland into an amusement park for tourists from other states. Whether or not it is, and will be a tourist destination —and to what extent it will—depends significantly on the consent and mandate of its people, and not only on government policy and state highhandedness. It is of the utmost importance that the discourse, and the industry itself, de-centres the mainlander and makes it about the people of the state and their interests. Ayaan Halder is a poet, author and doctoral research scholar at the Department of Law, Gauhati University, Assam (India). He spent his childhood and teenage years in Meghalaya, and is still closely associated with residents of the state. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
