Rajasthan police begin probe after NEET questions match ‘guess paper’

THe Special performance aggroup (SOG) of the say police force has launched a dig into into allegations of leaked questions in the National Entrance Eligibility Test (NEET) 2026, days after receiving intelligence about a question bank circulated online which had at least 120 questions also featured in the examination, officers said on Monday.However, a senior official with the National Testing Agency (NTA) said they had not yet received confirmation that any questions were common in the guess paper and main paper and added that they received a separate tip-off about the matter, which was forwarded to central agencies.The examination was held on May 3.“DGP Rajeev Sharma received an internal tip-off on May 7 about a guess paper circulated through WhatsApp and other public aspirants among aspirants before the exam. This question bank contained 410 questions in total, out of which 120 questions in chemistry and biology were found in the main paper, which had 200 questions,” said additional director general (SOG) Vishal Bansal.To be sure, a standard NEET question paper comprises 200 questions, out of which 150 concern the botany and zoology disciplines. A guess paper is a document listing probable questions for upcoming exams. They are generally created by experts or teachers, based on patterns of question trends and repetitions.“It is not confirmed yet if the paper was leaked,” said Bansal, adding no FIR was registered yet. Officers said the SOG had interrogated 12 people from Sikar, Jaipur, Kota and Jhunjhunu districts and also from Dehradun in Uttarakhand.“Prima facie, the guess paper was likely circulated by a coaching centre or a counsellor based in Sikar. We have also received unconfirmed reports that a similar question bank was circulated in other states, including Maharashtra, Gujarat and Kerala,” said the ADGP.Officers said the question bank was completely hand-written.“Aspirants who went through this guess paper could have potentially scored 600 out of 720 total marks. We are collecting data on how many students received the paper and are trying to trace those who prepared and circulated it,” added Bansal.Investigators said they were also trying to find out whether any money changed hands as the paper was circulated.“We are not yet sure if this is a coincidence or an actual paper leak. It is a very unusual case,” said Bansal.“Paper leak mafias generally do not opt for public domains to circulate papers. They take payments from aspirants, set up in-person appointments and then help aspirants memorise the answers from their own devices,” he added.“We need to understand how someone would benefit if the paper were to be leaked,” said the ADGP.Another senior SOG officer, who refused to be named, claimed that the agency had already traced people who allegedly took payments to circulate the paper. “We have found a local career counsellor who allegedly received the question bank on April 29 and bought it for over ₹5 lakh. This is yet to be confirmed and we have brought him to Jaipur for questioning to trace the larger circulation network. His bank accounts will also be checked to confirm the transaction,” said the officer.Bansal said that the SOG was probing whether known major paper leak gangs in the state were involved in the case. “Many coaching centres from Sikar were earlier found to be involved in major recruitment examination leaks. Action will be taken if any of them are found involved,” he said.Meanwhile, NTA, in a statement on Sunday, acknowledged the SOG investigation while asserting that the exam was conducted “under full security protocol”.“Question papers were transported in GPS-tracked vehicles bearing unique, traceable watermark identifiers. Examination halls operated under AI-assisted CCTV monitoring from a central control room, with biometric verification of every candidate and 5G jammers in operation,” said the statement.A senior NTA official, who also refused to be named, said the agency was coordinating with central agencies as well as the SOG. “On the evening of May 7, we received an email from a whistle-blower alleging that they had received a PDF of a ‘guess paper’ in advance, which reportedly contained questions matching those in the actual question paper. We immediately informed central agencies and sought their assistance to probe the authenticity of these claims and to understand why the information was not shared with us immediately after the exam,” he said.He declined to specify which central agencies were involved in the probe and confirmed that no FIR was registered.“We are still ascertaining whether the claims made by the whistle-blower are genuine, especially since the email was received nearly 96 hours after the examination and not immediately. We also need to examine whether any coaching institute may have prepared such a ‘guess paper’ to project itself as accurately predicting NTA’s questions. So far, neither the SOG nor the central agencies have indicated to us that the questions in the alleged guess paper matched the actual NEET-UG 2026 paper,” the official said.When asked if the examination would be conducted again in the event of a leak, he added, ““We will not speculate, as this examination concerns the careers of lakhs of students. We will issue regular press releases on any developments.”Narsi Ram, NTA’s city coordinator in Sikar, said that no malpractice complaints were lodged while the examination was underway. “Around 30,000 students appeared for the examination in Sikar,” he said.Sikar is considered the second-largest hub of coaching centres for JEE and NEET in Rajasthan, after Kota.In 2024, after the NTA published centre-wise performance data in compliance with a Supreme Court directive, Sikar was found to have the highest chunk of students from a single city securing top percentile marks overall.The data also revealed that 37 out of 50 centres yielding the most toppers every year were in Sikar district.