2.2 Million Students Sit NEET-UG Re-Exam Under Fortress-Level Security

Synopsis

The NEET-UG 2026 re-examination took place in 551 cities on June 21 at 5,440 examination centres, 7 weeks after the exam was postponed due to a paper leak in the coaching hubs of the state of Rajasthan. NTA installed 1,38,560 CCTVs, 51,311 jammers and sent more than 6,700 observers, while the IAF airlifted the question papers to 18 centres. The re-exam was held during continuing street protests and a CBI investigation which has resulted in several arrests.

The Breach That Forced a Restart

Within days of the May 3 examination, it was alleged that a guess paper containing a large number of questions, which was shared on WhatsApp and other coaching centres' platforms in Sikar, Rajasthan, had a lot of questions similar to the actual paper, especially in Chemistry and Biology, with some of the questions allegedly being the same in both exams – up to 120 questions were deemed similar.

Chemistry teacher Shashikant Suthar of Sikar first tipped off on alert after checking the content with the official paper. The case was transferred to CBI soon after the Rajasthan Police Special Operations Group had initiated an investigation and had made some arrests.

On May 12, the NTA officially cancelled the examination. CBI investigators then picked up a Pune-based professor of chemistry P.V. Kulkarni, who is allegedly involved in the NTA processes, and biology professor Manisha Gurunath Mandhare.

Investigators discovered the accused was conducting special coaching classes to which questions for the exam were being dictated.

The arrest of the headmistress of a Pune school, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar, who was appointed a subject expert by the NTA, on May 22 itself after she was caught recalling and sharing physics questions from memory, was a particularly stark disclosure.

Later on, she admitted that she had used a school computer for printing out the leaked material and burnt her handwritten notes to wipe the evidence.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan acknowledged that there is a "breach in the command chain" and stated that the NEET will be transitioned to the computer-based format from 2027.

The Scrutineers' Re-Examination: Scale and Architecture of Scrutiny

The NEET-UG was re-conducted on 21st June 2018 from 2 PM to 5:15 PM in 14 International locations and 551 cities across India, involving over 2.2 million aspirants who appeared for the test at 5,440 centres. The exam was taken in English & in 12 Indian languages.

This was a new method of surveillance used in Indian examination history. The NTA deployed 51,311 jammers — out of which 17,054 jammers were provided by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited and 34,257 by Bharat Electronics Limited — and installed 1,38,560 CCTV cameras to jam electronic communication in and around examination centres.

Question papers were airlifted to 18 centres all over the country by the Indian Air Force. Bank officials were deployed at around 1,500 branches that had the examination papers with a high degree of security and the Department of Posts arranged teams at almost 700 collection centres for transporting the OMR sheets.

More than 6,700 observers were deployed on the ground, with a Centre Systems Officer located at each of the 5,440 centres to monitor live feeds, and more than 100 virtual observers monitoring live feeds centrally using AI-based anomaly detection tools.

The arrangements for frisking were substantially strengthened, as were the dedicated frisking staff and the manpower deployed for biometric verification and face authentication at entry points, with 38,795 frisking staff and 48,448 deployed for biometric verification and face authentication at the entry points.

The mock drill held nationwide the day before, tested all the systems, including installation of CCTV cameras, jamming, frisking arrangements, biometric verification and more, as more than 2.5 lakh security personnel participated in each examination centre across the country.

Students' welfare and State measures

All 97 centres in Delhi have been declared as cooling centres, where parents would be given water, ORS and first-aid facilities, besides free travel on all DTC buses once they would produce their admit cards, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said.

The government of the state of Himachal Pradesh provided free transport in HRTC buses and in Prayagraj, the medical teams and ambulances were deployed at all 47 centres.

The human impact of the seven-week saga of the controversy was not missing from the scenery on the day. There were at least three students who died by suicide after the cancellation.

Dr. Banshilal Maurya, father of one of the aspirants, made a public appeal requesting parents and students to keep in mind that exams are just a part of life in Indore.

The government also suspended the Telegram app for a day, citing the rumours of fake paper leaks, warning students to not believe social media rumours until June 22.

June 21 was not just a test date for 2.2 million students who have been out of the system for years and have been turned down by the tests. This was a cost that the state had to pay twice.