What is the story about?
The paper leak strikes again. There are over 22 lakh aspirants for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Neet) UG 2026. The cancellation of the exam following the leak has left students anxious and emotionally exhausted.
Students slam the "shoddy system" as cops unearth a well-organised, multi-state network of at least 45 people spanning Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Uttarakhand in the Neet-UG 2026 paper leak case.
Several arrests have been made across India — from Nashik to Dehradun to Rajgir —with investigators revealing a vast network involving paper solvers, impersonators, coaching centre counsellors, and even MBBS students.
The Neet exam was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 3 for aspirants seeking admission to undergraduate medical courses. On Tuesday, May 12, over a week later, NTA cancelled the exam amid controversy over the alleged leak of the question paper.
We take a closer look.
Rajasthan's Sikar is at the centre of the Neet paper leak scandal.
A probe by the Rajasthan Police Special Operations Group (SOG) pointed to a complex trail leading to Nashik, where the question papers were allegedly printed. However, a separate investigation by the Nashik Police has presented a different account.
The Nashik Police sources noted that a BAMS student obtained the paper through the Telegram app from another Pune-based student. The student, identified as Shubham Khairnar, allegedly bought the paper for Rs 10 lakh and then sold it to a buyer in Haryana for Rs 15 lakh.
Officials probing the matter initially believed the Neet-UG paper might have been leaked directly from Nashik's printing press, as per Rajasthan police sources, India Today reported.
According to sources, a person connected to the printing press may have passed the paper into a "chain network," from which it reached a doctor in Gurugram, Haryana.
The network only widens...
Khatik, another man from Jaipur's Jamwa Ramgarh, then reportedly purchased the paper from the doctor.
From Jamwa Ramgarh, the question paper was allegedly passed on to Rakesh Kumar Mandawaria in Sikar, Rajasthan, who reportedly works as an MBBS counselling agent outside the major coaching institutes there.
The Neet paper was distributed from a one-to-one network across the nation, reaching several coaching centres in Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Kerala and Uttarakhand.
According to investigators, question papers were circulating as a "guess paper," which is now the subject of a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Guess papers are generally practice questions prepared by tutors based on trends from previous years.
The probe suggests that the papers had been circulating for nearly 15 days before the May 3 exam and were sold to medical aspirants for amounts ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 28 lakh.
In fact, a student from Nagaur who reached Sikar four days ahead of the May 3 exam allegedly paid Rs 28 lakh to obtain the paper, the report noted.
Nashik arrest
On Tuesday (May 12), the CBI took custody of a 30-year-old Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) student from Maharashtra's Nashik in connection with the leak case. The arrested man has been identified as Shubham Khairnar.
He reportedly bought the "guess paper" for Rs 10 lakh from another Pune-based suspect, and then sold it further for Rs 15 lakh to a Haryana-based buyer, police sources stated.
Khairnar was initially detained by the Nashik Crime Branch, which subsequently handed him over to the central agency. According to media reports, the police sources have clarified that the exam papers were not printed in Nashik.
Khairnar was living with his family in Nashik's Indiranagar area. He originally hails from Nandgaon taluka in Nashik district.
He was detained while on his way to a temple. People probing the matter revealed that he allegedly changed his appearance, including cutting his hair to avoid identification. However, cops identified him by comparing his face with old photographs and using technical surveillance inputs, the
Republic reported.
Khairnar's father, Dr Madhukar Khairnar, has refuted allegations against his son, saying he is innocent.
Rajgir arrests
Police in Rajgir, Bihar, made a crucial catch on the day of the exam itself. Rajgir DSP Sunil Kumar Singh asserted that after checking vehicles on May 3, cops came across two cars.
"The person driving, who claimed to be an MBBS student, had a stack of cash inside his car. Upon checking their mobile phones, we found multiple admit cards. Three people have been arrested," Singh said,
Times of India (TOI)
reported.
Following intelligence inputs, police were on high alert, leading to arrests.
Dehradun arrests
On May 7, from Dehradun, Rajastan Special Operations Group (SOG) nabbed five people, including Rakesh Kumar, a Sikar-based career counsellor, one of the alleged masterminds.
Rakesh Kumar allegedly obtained a question bank containing 410 questions from an examinee in Kerala, of which 150 reportedly matched the actual Neet paper held on May 3. He is said to have initially sold the paper for Rs 5 lakh, but later reduced the price to Rs 30,000 per aspirant as the exam date neared, the report noted.
In Sikar, a counsellor associated with a coaching centre has also been detained for allegedly purchasing the "guess paper" for Rs 5 lakh and then selling it to Neet aspirants via WhatsApp.
According to investigators, the handwritten "guess" paper matched 120 of the 150 questions in biology and chemistry from the original exam paper.
Aforementioned, Rakesh, one of the masterminds, reportedly started it all.
He allegedly first sold the paper for Rs 30,000 to one of his aides, a Sikar native studying MBBS in Kerala. A day before the exam, the MBBS student reportedly forwarded the paper to his father, who runs a PG facility in Sikar.
The message read: "Papa, a friend from Sikar sent this to me. Please give it to the girls in your hostel. This is what will come in tomorrow's exam," according to reports.
After the exam, the PG operator approached a teacher at a coaching institute to verify how many questions from the “guess paper” had actually appeared in the exam.
The verification revealed that all 90 Biology questions and all 45 Chemistry questions from the NEET exam were present in the 281-question “guess paper.” The Neet examination consists of 180 questions, and each question carries four marks.
In fact, investigators discovered that all 45 Chemistry questions in the "guess paper" were in the same order as the actual Neet paper, with no changes, even in commas or full stops.
After knowing about this, the hostel operator first approached the Udyog Nagar police station in Sikar. However, he later told investigators that the police refuted his claims and advised him not to spread rumours. He then shared the information with the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body responsible for conducting the Neet exam.
The NTA then forwarded the inputs to the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which alerted the Rajasthan Police. After this, the Rajasthan SOG launched a probe and initially detained around 15 individuals, including the hostel operator.
The raids expanded in Dehradun and Jhunjhunu, leading to the detention of more suspects. For now, investigators have focused their probe on Sikar and Jaipur, suspecting that Sikar is likely to have become a new hotspot for paper leak networks.
The investigation has revealed that the paper may have leaked in Jaipur first and then experienced rapid circulation in Sikar. Agencies are mapping the entire leak chain as the manhunt for the other mastermind behind the network is underway.
With inputs from agencies
Students slam the "shoddy system" as cops unearth a well-organised, multi-state network of at least 45 people spanning Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Uttarakhand in the Neet-UG 2026 paper leak case.
Several arrests have been made across India — from Nashik to Dehradun to Rajgir —with investigators revealing a vast network involving paper solvers, impersonators, coaching centre counsellors, and even MBBS students.
The Neet exam was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 3 for aspirants seeking admission to undergraduate medical courses. On Tuesday, May 12, over a week later, NTA cancelled the exam amid controversy over the alleged leak of the question paper.
We take a closer look.
How the Neet-UG paper got leaked
Rajasthan's Sikar is at the centre of the Neet paper leak scandal.
A probe by the Rajasthan Police Special Operations Group (SOG) pointed to a complex trail leading to Nashik, where the question papers were allegedly printed. However, a separate investigation by the Nashik Police has presented a different account.
The Nashik Police sources noted that a BAMS student obtained the paper through the Telegram app from another Pune-based student. The student, identified as Shubham Khairnar, allegedly bought the paper for Rs 10 lakh and then sold it to a buyer in Haryana for Rs 15 lakh.
Officials probing the matter initially believed the Neet-UG paper might have been leaked directly from Nashik's printing press, as per Rajasthan police sources, India Today reported.
According to sources, a person connected to the printing press may have passed the paper into a "chain network," from which it reached a doctor in Gurugram, Haryana.
The network only widens...
Khatik, another man from Jaipur's Jamwa Ramgarh, then reportedly purchased the paper from the doctor.
From Jamwa Ramgarh, the question paper was allegedly passed on to Rakesh Kumar Mandawaria in Sikar, Rajasthan, who reportedly works as an MBBS counselling agent outside the major coaching institutes there.
The Neet paper was distributed from a one-to-one network across the nation, reaching several coaching centres in Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Kerala and Uttarakhand.
According to investigators, question papers were circulating as a "guess paper," which is now the subject of a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Guess papers are generally practice questions prepared by tutors based on trends from previous years.
The probe suggests that the papers had been circulating for nearly 15 days before the May 3 exam and were sold to medical aspirants for amounts ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 28 lakh.
In fact, a student from Nagaur who reached Sikar four days ahead of the May 3 exam allegedly paid Rs 28 lakh to obtain the paper, the report noted.
Who are the masterminds behind the leak?
Nashik arrest
On Tuesday (May 12), the CBI took custody of a 30-year-old Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) student from Maharashtra's Nashik in connection with the leak case. The arrested man has been identified as Shubham Khairnar.
He reportedly bought the "guess paper" for Rs 10 lakh from another Pune-based suspect, and then sold it further for Rs 15 lakh to a Haryana-based buyer, police sources stated.
Khairnar was initially detained by the Nashik Crime Branch, which subsequently handed him over to the central agency. According to media reports, the police sources have clarified that the exam papers were not printed in Nashik.
Khairnar was living with his family in Nashik's Indiranagar area. He originally hails from Nandgaon taluka in Nashik district.
He was detained while on his way to a temple. People probing the matter revealed that he allegedly changed his appearance, including cutting his hair to avoid identification. However, cops identified him by comparing his face with old photographs and using technical surveillance inputs, the
Khairnar's father, Dr Madhukar Khairnar, has refuted allegations against his son, saying he is innocent.
Rajgir arrests
Police in Rajgir, Bihar, made a crucial catch on the day of the exam itself. Rajgir DSP Sunil Kumar Singh asserted that after checking vehicles on May 3, cops came across two cars.
"The person driving, who claimed to be an MBBS student, had a stack of cash inside his car. Upon checking their mobile phones, we found multiple admit cards. Three people have been arrested," Singh said,
Following intelligence inputs, police were on high alert, leading to arrests.
Dehradun arrests
On May 7, from Dehradun, Rajastan Special Operations Group (SOG) nabbed five people, including Rakesh Kumar, a Sikar-based career counsellor, one of the alleged masterminds.
Rakesh Kumar allegedly obtained a question bank containing 410 questions from an examinee in Kerala, of which 150 reportedly matched the actual Neet paper held on May 3. He is said to have initially sold the paper for Rs 5 lakh, but later reduced the price to Rs 30,000 per aspirant as the exam date neared, the report noted.
In Sikar, a counsellor associated with a coaching centre has also been detained for allegedly purchasing the "guess paper" for Rs 5 lakh and then selling it to Neet aspirants via WhatsApp.
According to investigators, the handwritten "guess" paper matched 120 of the 150 questions in biology and chemistry from the original exam paper.
"This will come in the exam"
Aforementioned, Rakesh, one of the masterminds, reportedly started it all.
He allegedly first sold the paper for Rs 30,000 to one of his aides, a Sikar native studying MBBS in Kerala. A day before the exam, the MBBS student reportedly forwarded the paper to his father, who runs a PG facility in Sikar.
The message read: "Papa, a friend from Sikar sent this to me. Please give it to the girls in your hostel. This is what will come in tomorrow's exam," according to reports.
After the exam, the PG operator approached a teacher at a coaching institute to verify how many questions from the “guess paper” had actually appeared in the exam.
The verification revealed that all 90 Biology questions and all 45 Chemistry questions from the NEET exam were present in the 281-question “guess paper.” The Neet examination consists of 180 questions, and each question carries four marks.
In fact, investigators discovered that all 45 Chemistry questions in the "guess paper" were in the same order as the actual Neet paper, with no changes, even in commas or full stops.
How did the crackdown play out?
After knowing about this, the hostel operator first approached the Udyog Nagar police station in Sikar. However, he later told investigators that the police refuted his claims and advised him not to spread rumours. He then shared the information with the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body responsible for conducting the Neet exam.
The NTA then forwarded the inputs to the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which alerted the Rajasthan Police. After this, the Rajasthan SOG launched a probe and initially detained around 15 individuals, including the hostel operator.
The raids expanded in Dehradun and Jhunjhunu, leading to the detention of more suspects. For now, investigators have focused their probe on Sikar and Jaipur, suspecting that Sikar is likely to have become a new hotspot for paper leak networks.
The investigation has revealed that the paper may have leaked in Jaipur first and then experienced rapid circulation in Sikar. Agencies are mapping the entire leak chain as the manhunt for the other mastermind behind the network is underway.
With inputs from agencies
