NEET: Medical entrance server was hacked, two held, say cops

Raids are also being held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Bihar and other cities to nab the rest of the accused, which include some doctors, police said.

Written by Mahender Singh Manral | New Delhi | Published:April 29, 2017 4:44 am

With the arrest of two people, Delhi Police have cracked a case wherein computer servers were allegedly hacked during the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), held to admit students into postgraduate medical courses in December, 2016. Raids are also being held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Bihar and other cities to nab the rest of the accused, which include some doctors, police said. Police said the arrested persons have been identified as Abhishek Singh, a native of Varanasi, and Atul Vats, a native of Patna.

“Police received information on January 20 that some people cracked the online medical entrance examination, held between December 5 and December 13, after hacking the servers. With the help of technical surveillance, police identified the accused and teams were formed to unearth the conspiracy,” police sources said, adding that a case has been registered following a complaint by Inspector Ashish Kumar, who was the leading the investigation team before Inspector Lokendra Chauhan took over.

The two arrests were made on April 10 and the men were taken into police custody for 10 days. Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, police said they charged a huge amount of money from aspirants after assuring them of good ranks in the NEET postgraduate examination.

“The accused zeroed in on aspirants and struck a deal with them after taking a hefty amount. Vats met a person looking after the software used for the examination and roped him in. Singh, meanwhile, asked some doctors for help. The doctors would sit in a hotel in Dwarka and take the exam from there,” a senior officer said.

“On the day of the examination, the candidate at the examination centre would be able to send the questions to the doctors as the servers were compromised. The paper was solved by experts sitting in a hotel in Dwarka, who would send the answers back to them,” an officer said.

“Since the exam was computer-based, an agency from the US providing Educational Testing Services is being roped in to unearth the larger conspiracy,” the officer said