NEET paper leak: NTA expert panel member, Biology Professor, arrested from Pune

NEW DELHI: In a major breakthrough in the NEET question paper leak case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (BI) has apprehended another educator. Manisha Gurunath Mandhara, a biology professor from Pune, was arrested on Saturday following an intense round of questioning after being brought to the national capital.

Sources reveal that Mandhara was among the experts commissioned by the National Testing Agency (NTA) to draft questions for this year's NEET-UG examination. She was a member of the specialised panel responsible for setting the Zoology and Botany papers. According to the CBI, Mandhara leaked the confidential question papers to accomplices who were previously arrested in Pune and Nashik.

Investigation reports indicate that during the first week of April, Mandhara conducted specialised coaching sessions for a select group of students at her residence in Pune, arranged through Manisha Waghmare, another suspect arrested earlier in the case. During these sessions, she provided the students with specific, highly probable questions in Botany and Zoology. Investigators confirmed that these identical questions subsequently appeared in the official NEET examination paper.

This arrest follows close on the heels of another high-profile apprehension, where the CBI detained P.V. Kulkarni, a chemistry professor from Latur. Kulkarni, who similarly served on the NTA’s expert paper-setting panel, is accused of adopting an identical modus operandi to leak confidential questions. With Mandhara's arrest, the total number of individuals taken into custody by the CBI in connection with the NEET paper leak case has risen to nine.