Ahmedabad: Hundreds of NEET aspirants were expecting exam fee refunds. Instead, a 19-year-old college student from Bihar was allegedly trying to divert the funds to his own bank accounts. By exploiting weak passwords, he is suspected to have accessed nearly 150 candidate accounts on the NEET UG-2026 portal, said police on Monday. The cybercrime branch of Ahmedabad city police arrested the student from Gaya district after tracing him through digital footprints left on the NEET UG-2026 portal.Officials have not disclosed how much, if any, money was ultimately transferred to the accused through the scheme.The fraud surfaced after a candidate complained that someone had illegally accessed their National Testing Agency (NTA) account and changed the bank account information designated for receiving the refund of exam fees.According to investigators, the accused focused on candidates who chose simple, easily guessable passwords. Using combinations based on personal details and commonly used credentials, he allegedly attempted to break into the accounts of around 350 NEET candidates.Police said he successfully gained access to nearly 150 accounts and then identified candidates eligible for refunds. He allegedly replaced their bank account details with his own, so that any refund processed by the NTA would be credited to him.The investigation made a breakthrough with assistance from the NTA’s chief information security officer (CISO), who shared technical inputs and digital-trail data generated by the portal’s security systems.Using information from the NTA, along with analysis of bank account records and other electronic evidence, cybercrime police tracked the accused to Bihar and arrested him.Police said preliminary findings suggest the student’s objective was to siphon off refund amounts due to NEET candidates. Investigators also found that he had already altered bank account details in multiple candidate accounts before the fraud could be carried out on a larger scale.The accused has been booked under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act.Cybercrime police are now examining whether any refunds were successfully credited to the accused and whether others were involved in the operation. Investigators are also analysing whether additional candidate accounts may have been compromised.
