NEET Re‑Exam Fraud: Bihar Solver Gang Busted, 30 Arrested Including Biometric Firm Staff

A day after lakhs of medical aspirants sat for the NEET UG 2026 re-examination, Bihar Police cracked open a brazen impersonation racket that had slipped imposters past security using a disturbingly simple trick -  dressing them up as biometric verification staff.

In total, 30 people were arrested across multiple exam centres in Lakhisarai district, including nine impersonators who were caught sitting the exam in place of genuine candidates, and 14 employees of the biometric verification firm contracted to authenticate students at the gates.

How the Network Unravelled

The breakthrough came when Mayank Kashyap, a third-year MBBS student at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), walked into the Hasanpur High School exam centre disguised as a biometric company staffer. Police caught him first, and what he revealed during questioning blew the lid off a much larger operation leading investigators straight to the gang's other hideouts.

That single arrest set off a chain reaction. Officers fanned out to three centres Government Higher Secondary School (Hasanpur), KRK Higher Secondary School, and Kendriya Vidyalaya and began pulling people out one by one.

The breakdown of impersonators caught is telling:

• 1 caught at KRK High School
• 7 caught at Kendriya Vidyalaya
• 1 caught at Hasanpur School

Beyond the nine proxies, 21 more people were rounded up for their suspected role in running and enabling the racket among them, 14 employees of the very biometric verification company meant to be guarding the gates against exactly this kind of fraud.

The Alleged Mastermind

Investigators believe the gang was steered by Arpit Raj, a student at Annapurna Narayan Magadh Medical College and Hospital (ANMMCH) in Gaya. He is not a new name to investigators.  Arpit was reportedly questioned multiple times by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during its probe into the original NEET UG 2026 paper leak, which forced the entire exam to be scrapped and re-conducted in the first place.

According to police, the alleged conspiracy was straightforward but effective on paper: arrange for trained "solvers" to pose as registered candidates and sit the exam in their place, while biometric staff allegedly looked the other way or actively helped wave the impostors through verification checks that were supposed to make this impossible.

Seven employees of the biometric firm are currently being questioned over how fake candidates managed to clear identity verification and enter the centres undetected, a lapse that has put the spotlight squarely on the company's screening protocols.

Who's Running the Investigation

The arrested accused are being interrogated under the supervision of SDM Prabhakar Kumar and SDPO Shivam Kumar, with District Magistrate Shailendra Kumar and Superintendent of Police Prerna Kumar personally overseeing the case. Mobile phones and documents recovered from the accused are now being combed through for further leads.

A special police team has since launched raids on locations linked to the network, based on leads gathered during interrogation. Officials have indicated that more arrests could follow as the investigation widens, and have promised a fuller picture of the network once the probe concludes.

Why There Was a Re-Exam in the First Place

To understand why this incident is landing so hard, it helps to know the backstory. The original NEET UG 2026 exam, held on May 3, 2026, was cancelled by the National Testing Agency (NTA) after allegations of a question paper leak surfaced from multiple states, with a special Rajasthan operations team flagging irregularities. The investigation into the NEET UG 2026 paper leak case is being handled by the CBI.

Following the cancellation, the NTA rescheduled the test as a re-examination on June 21, 2026, this time under far tighter security. Over 22 lakh candidates were set to appear for the pen-and-paper re-NEET UG exam, conducted in a single shift from 2 pm to 5:15 pm. The NTA deployed the exam across roughly 5,440 centres spanning 551 cities in India, plus 14 centres abroad, and backed it with more than 95,000 CCTV-equipped exam rooms and over 1.38 million cameras monitored live at the national, state, and ministry level.

Despite that scale of security, Monday's arrests show how a handful of insiders allegedly working at the biometric checkpoint itself may have been enough to undermine it at a local level.

What Happens Next

Bihar Police say the complete picture of the network how far it spread, how many centres were compromised, and who funded or coordinated it will only emerge once the investigation is complete. For now, all 30 accused remain in custody, and authorities have not ruled out the possibility of more names surfacing as the probe deepens into one of the most audacious exam-fraud attempts this NEET cycle has seen.

Read More: NEET UG 2026: NTA Says Paper Leak Video Fake, Re-Exam Conducted Successfully Under Tight Security