2 held in Surat for forging documents like Aadhaar, PAN cards using website
police say it's serious national security issue
Surat (PTI): Two persons have been arrested in Gujarat's Surat city for allegedly forging documents like Aadhaar and PAN cards as well as voter IDs using a website, thereby posing a serious threat to national security, a police official said.
The accused were accessing government database, which is a case of illegal authorisation and a serious issue, the official said on Monday.
He said the accused forged around two lakh identity proof documents like Aadhaar and PAN cards and sold them for Rs 15 to Rs 200 each.
Acting on a complaint received from the officials of a private lender that some persons got loans processed on the basis of fake documents and defaulted on repayment, six persons were arrested for forgery and cheating, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences) VK Parmar said.
During interrogation, one of the six accused, identified as Prince Hemant Prasad, said he accessed the website in question using his registered username and password to download forged Aadhaar and PAN cards on payment of Rs 15-50 per document, he said.
The fake identity cards downloaded from the website by making the payment were used for purposes like getting bank loans sanctioned and purchasing SIM cards, the official said.
One Somnath Pramodkumar, a resident of Ganganagar in Rajasthan, whose name was linked to a number of mobile numbers present on the website, was arrested
through technical surveillance, he said.
Another person, Premvirsinh Thakur, a resident of Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, on whose name the website was created, was also arrested, the official said.
"When questioned, they revealed to having forged around two lakh identity documents in two years. Somnath has studied till Class 5. He got technical help from certain people to carry out the illegal activity. The website was running since the last three years," he said.
"This is a serious national security issue. They are not changing but accessing the government database and that is a case of illegal authorisation," the official said.
It is possible that many more persons are behind this, Parmar said, adding the police have frozen Rs 25 lakh in the bank accounts of Pramodkumar and his mother.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
