Congress claims IT Dept raided party employees, says BJP trying to convert India into 'police state'
New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday claimed the Income Tax Department raided houses of five employees of the party and accused the BJP of trying to convert India into a "police state".
According to the Congress, the Income Tax Department carried out raids at residences of five employees of the party's accounts department on Friday. The raids continued on Saturday as well.
Addressing a press conference at the party office here, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma wondered whether there were two sets of laws in the country as no one questioned the BJP, which, he claimed, was the richest political party in the world.
"India cannot be converted into a state where people are living in fear and insecurity... You (BJP) cannot create a police or a surveillance state by terror of raids on the opposition party," he said.
He alleged that the BJP-led government is obsessed with political vendetta and now it has started raiding the houses of Congress employees as part of its agenda to target the opposition parties.
Citing reports, Sharma claimed that the BJP spent about Rs 40,000 crore during the Lok Sabha elections and 99 per cent of the total electoral bonds were in its favour but no one questioned the party.
"From where (did) this money come? No one asks them questions and now the BJP-led government has stooped to a new low by targeting small-time salaried employees of the Congress... they are just employees, not leaders," he said.
The Congress leader alleged that the BJP is flushed with money as the government indulged in crony-capitalism. Sharma said the ruling party thinks it is above the law.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.
