The unravelling of a suspected leak in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG), 2026, in Rajasthan began with an automated fine print on a WhatsApp message: “Forwarded many times.” When investigators following the trail of a “guess paper” stumbled upon this WhatsApp message, they realised that what they hoped was an isolated leak was much larger in scale.

Officials of the Rajasthan Special Operations Group (SOG), which had been investigating the case before the CBI took charge on Tuesday, said that they found a WhatsApp group named ‘Private Mafia’, where the said paper was being circulated and had members who had paid various amounts, beginning from around Rs 5,000, to join the group.…