Ranchi: City police arrested 164 people, including 159 aspirants, early on Sunday ahead of the Jharkhand Excise Constable Competitive Examination, 2023, on charges of attempting to adopt “unfair” means and forgery, among others.Prashant Kumar, chairman of Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission, which conducts the exam, claimed that there was no paper leak and the crackdown was based on a tip-off to police that didn’t have any bearing on the exam.The rest of the accused belong to the ‘solver’s gang’, who were involved in the 2024 NEET-UG paper leak case, officers said. One of them has been identified as Atul Vats, 38, a native of Jehanabad in Bihar and a kingpin of the gang, police said. The other members are Vikas Kumar, 41, of Patna, Mukesh Kumar Singh, 32, of East Champaran, and Ashish Kumar, 37, and Yogesh Prasad, 34, of Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district.Ranchi SSP Rakesh Ranjan said that a large number of students had gathered at an under-construction building in Rargaon under Tamar police station limits on Saturday night. After bringing the candidates, the gang’s agents took their mobile phones and admit cards. Ranjan said that after receiving information, a team led by SP (rural) Pravin Pushkar, SP (city) Paras Rana and SP (traffic) Rakesh Singh raided the place. “The candidates tried to throw/hide their possessions and run helter-skelter but were nabbed. Of them, seven are female. All were brought from different places in four-wheelers,” Ranjan said.He added, “We also found printers, question-answer sets, admit cards, mobile phones and bank cheques. Eight vehicles were also seized.”“The candidates who were arrested have been permanently barred from taking any exams as they had resorted to unfair means. However, the gang defrauded them,” Kumar told the media, adding that the gang had given the aspirants some question papers asking them to memorize/solve it claiming it was a leaked paper.“The gang apparently charged around Rs 10-15 lakh from each candidate,” he said, reiterating that aspirants should refrain from falling for such means.BJP hit out at the Hemant Soren-led govt for failing to ensure the sanctity of exams. Ex-MLA Bhanu Pratap Sahi sought the CM’s resignation and demanded a CBI probe into the entire nexus. Congress, part of the ruling alliance hit back at petty politics by BJP. Party spokesperson Alok Dubey said, “It is because of an alert police that the nexus was foiled.”As many as 15 candidates had died in 2024 during physical tests for the 583 posts of excise constables, prompting the government to temporarily halt the process. Govt resumed the physical tests on Sep 10 last year after amending the SoP.