Three electrocuted while putting up banner of actor Yash
Gadag (PTI): Three died and three others were injured after the metal cutout they were holding came in contact with a livewire in the Gadag district on Sunday night. The poster was being put up for the birthday of actor Yash.
The deceased were identified as Hanumant Harijan (21), Murali Naduvinamani (20) and Naveen Gaji (19) from Suranagi village of Lakshmeshwar taluk.
Manjunath Harijan, Prakash Myageri and Deepak Harijan are under treatment at Lakshmeshwar taluk hospital.
10 youths from Suranagi village had planned to celebrate Sandalwood actor Yash’s birthday which falls on January 8 and they planned to make a big metal cutout of nearly 25 feet. While they were installing the metal cutout, it came in contact with the live wire. Three died on the spot and three others injured and the rest of the youths present strived hard to save the other three.
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Villagers rushed to the spot and helped the youths to shift to the taluk hospital of Lakshmeshwar town on Sunday around 11 pm. Suranagi is 13 km from Lakshmeshwar town and the villagers took a vehicle from the village and shifted to Taluk hospital.
The dead bodies were brought to the Suranagi village on Monday morning and they performed funerals at the village around 10.30 am.
Gadag district minister H K Patil spoke in Bengaluru that he would speak with CM Siddaramaiah about giving compensation to deceased family members. Shirahatti MLA Dr Chandru Lamani visited the Suranagi village and promised the family of the deceased to talk about the compensation.
Lakshmeshwar Taluk Hospital medical officers said that all three are responding to treatment two have almost recovered and one is still recovering.
Suresh Shiraasangi, a villager from Suranagi said, “They used to erect cutouts in different areas earlier but some youths planned to change the cutout area and they came to this area and tried to erect the metal cutout and the incident happened. When the live wire came in contact with the metal, two youths died on the spot and one youth suffered for a few seconds and died. The other youths started screaming after watching this incident and villagers came outside to see what happened. When villagers saw three people screaming in pain, they did not wait for the ambulance but took a vehicle which was available at the time and shifted them to Lakshmeshwar town. Some villagers told them to be careful before putting up the banner but the young people were in a festive mood and they were whistling in happiness. Sadly, it lasted for one minute and they were electrocuted".
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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.
