Bengaluru drug racket: Actress Ragini Dwivedi, 11 others booked under NDPS Act
Bengaluru: The Bengaluru police have registered a case of drug abuse against 12 people, including Kannada film actress Ragini Dwivedi, stating that they were supplying drugs to various people at parties through drug peddlers.
So far 13 people have been booked in two separate cases and six among them have been arrested, the police said.
The case registered by the police department on its own under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act has been taken up on a complaint by the Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Central Crime Branch of Bengaluru K C Gautham against "who's who of Bengaluru high end party circle," top police sources said.
Those booked under the NDPS Act are Shivaprakash, Ragini Dwivedi, Veeren Khanna, Prashant Ranka, Vaibhav Jain, Aditya Alva, Loom Pepper Samba, Prashanth Raju, Ashwin, Abhiswamy, Rahul Thonshe and Vijay, they said. Loom Pepper is from Decar City in Senegal, police said, adding the rest are from Bengaluru.
Besides these 12 people, a separate case has been registered against B K Ravishankar, a clerk in the Road Transport Office who was a close acquaintance of Ragini Dwivedi, the police said. He was the first catch in the case and is in custody in another case, the police added.
ACP Gautham stated in his complaint that Ravishankar revealed the names of these 12 people during interrogation.
"All these persons from accused number-1 to accused number-12 people including Dwivedi used to connive together to hold (Rave) parties at different parts of Bengaluru and call many clients.
They used to obtain drugs from the drug peddlers to supply them to businessmen, celebrities, some film actors and actresses, disk jockeys, software engineers and others and make money through illegal means and indulged in unlawful activities," the ACP said in his complaint.
According to police, the six people arrested include Dwivedi, Ravishankar, Rahul, Veeren Khanna and Loom Pepper. While Ragini Dwivedi was arrested last evening, her friend Ravishankar, a clerk at RTO in Jayanagar and Rahul Shetty, a real estate businessman, were arrested on Thursday.
Officials had also arrested high-end party planner Veeren Khanna in connection with the case in New Delhi on Friday.
"Loum Pepper Samba from Africa, who was the drug peddler, supplying drugs to Ravi and other celebrities, has been arrested by the Central Crime Branch," CCB officials said.
The CCB intensified its investigation into a drugs haul in Bengaluru after the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested three persons from the city, who were allegedly supplying drugs to singers and actors in the Kannada film industry, also known as "Sandalwood".
Filmmaker and journalist Indrajit Lankesh had given his statement to the CCB about drug abuse in Sandalwood. He had also claimed that at least 15 people in the industry were involved in the drugs trade. The police had raided Ragini Dwivedi's residence on Friday morning and later in the evening after questioning, arrested her.
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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.
