Whenever Godhra is mentioned, the riots of 2002 come to people’s mind. The terror of this riot, which is recorded as one of the biggest tragedies of independent India, can still be felt in Godhra.
22 years after this incident, in 2024, Godhra is once again in the headlines and the matter is related to the much talked about NEET exam paper leak scam. A school in Godhra has emerged as the center point of the medical entrance exam scam worth crores of rupees.
Gujarat police have revealed how at least 30 students from across the country handed over Rs 10 lakh to Rs 66 lakh to criminals to pass medical entrance exams. On June 13, five people were arrested who are accused of taking money on behalf of teachers to fill the answer sheets of the candidates.
Along with this, the police revealed another shocking fact that students from Haryana, Bihar, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Karnataka reached an unknown center in Godhra, Gujarat to take the NEET exam. India Today journalist Jumana Shah tells in her report that when the collector of Godhra got information about irregularities in the exam, he stopped the NEET exam held here on May 5 across the country.
The scam was allegedly carried out by Roy Overseas, a Vadodara-based coaching class, Purushottam Sharma, principal of Jai Jalaram School in Parwadi village in Godhra (where the exam was being held), and Tushar Bhatt, a teacher at the school and deputy superintendent of the NEET centre. The students accused of cheating were supposed to fill in whatever answers they knew and the blank answers were to be filled in by the teachers after the answer key was released.
The Godhra collector, on receiving a tip-off, alerted the district education officer, who along with the additional collector visited the centre and seized the phone of the NEET centre’s deputy superintendent, Tushar Bhatt. They found messages on the phone allegedly sent by Parshuram Roy of Roy Overseas and listed the names, roll numbers and exam centres of six students. Bhatt admitted that each student had agreed to pay Rs 10 lakh.
Apart from this, Rs 7 lakh cash was also seized from Bhatt’s car outside the examination centre. The District Education Officer filed an FIR in this case on 9 May.
On June 11, the Supreme Court clubbed together several petitions on NEET irregularities across the country and issued a notice to the National Testing Agency (NTA) in connection with the CBI probe into the paper leak in Bihar and allegations of cheating in Godhra. The next day, June 12, the Gujarat police arrested five people—Bhatt, Roy, Sharma, an education consultant Vibhor Anand, and Arif Vohra, a mediator involving school teachers.
Godhra SP Himanshu Solanki told India Today, “In the half-an-hour given to invigilators to pack the papers, Bhatt was supposed to fill in the blank answer sheets. The answer key (containing the correct answers to the questions) was to be provided by Roy and similar coaching institutes who provide answer keys online after the exam.”
Jumana Shah wrote in her report, “Roy allegedly recruited students through his coaching institute. Vibhor Anand runs a consultancy to send students abroad for medical studies. Roy, a resident of Vadodara, and Vibhor Anand are natives of Bihar. The plan was allegedly to alter the mark sheets of 30 students. The police have identified 27 students and linked at least a dozen of them to Anand and Roy, while the rest are being investigated.”
The police have recovered cheques worth Rs 2.82 crore drawn by seven students from Roy’s office, while four students transferred Rs 66 lakh to Roy’s bank account. Some blank cheques bearing the mobile numbers of parents were also recovered, along with the names of the parents and two contact lists. The police claim that students from other states were in touch with Roy and Anand and were advised to choose the Godhra centre to write their exams. Even though the accused are in police custody and are being questioned, the police suspect that the cheating racket is operating at more than one exam centre in Gujarat.