Assam JEE Main 2020 topper arrested, allegedly used proxy for exam

JEE Main 2020 topper from Assam has been arrested by the Assam police for using an impersonator in place of him to write the exam. Read on to know more.

JEE Main 2020 topper from Assam who scored 99.8 percentile in the exam has been arrested by the state police for allegedly using an impersonator to sit for the exam in place of him.

The candidate, Neel Nakshatra Das, his father, Dr Jyotirmoy Das, and three employees of an exam centre: Hamendra Nath Sarma, Pranjal Kalita and Hirulal Pathak, have been arrested by the Guwahati police.

The Police made the arrests after a complaint was lodged by Mitradev Sharma on October 23. He alleged that the candidate did not appear for the JEE Main 2020 held on September 5. According to him, someone else had written the examination at a centre in Guwahati.

"An FIR (first information report) has been registered with the Azara Police in Assam against the topper of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains in Assam, allegedly for using a proxy to appear in the examination on his behalf. We investigated the case and have unearthed that a proxy was used by the candidate through the help of another agency that acted as a middleman," Guwahati Police Commissioner MP Gupta told media.

"The staff of the testing centre in Guwahati is also involved. We are searching for more people (who are involved in the crime). This might not be a one-of case but may be part of a larger scam... We are looking at all aspects," he added.

JEE Main is the basis for admission to India's top engineering colleges such as NITs and IIITs. It acts as a gateway for JEE Advanced, the exam conducted for admission to IITs.