4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: May 18, 2026 06:58 AM IST
A 46-year-old beautician from Pune has emerged as a “common link” in the CBI’s probe into the NEET-UG case, connecting students looking for tuition teachers with teachers of reputed schools, for a commission — and allegedly using these contacts to distribute the leaked paper that led to the exam’s cancellation, sources told The Indian Express.
Manisha Waghmare, who runs a beauty parlour in Pune’s Sukhsagar Nagar, was arrested on May 14 and remanded in CBI custody for 10 days starting May 16, along with another key accused, P V Kulkarni, a retired teacher. On Sunday, a Delhi court granted the agency 14 days’ custody of a third accused, Manisha Gurunath Mandhare (57), an expert on the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) question-setting panel for NEET-UG 2026, whom the agency has identified as one of the alleged “masterminds” in the case.
Seeking custody, the CBI told the court that Mandhare, who was arrested on May 15 in Pune, allegedly leaked the question papers to selected candidates in exchange for “substantial monetary gains”. As an NTA-appointed expert, she allegedly had complete access to both the Botany and Zoology question papers, the agency told the court. “Mandhare conspired with other co-accused, including Manisha Waghmare and Prahlad Vittal Rao Kulkarni. She provided examination-related questions/ content to selected students in consideration of substantial monetary benefits. She is one of the experts on the panel of NTA and involved in the process of setting the question papers, during which she gained access to the final question sets of NEET UG 2026, which she subsequently leaked to the students for monetary gain.”
Sources said Waghmare’s role is also key to cracking the case. She allegedly “came to know that Mandhare was involved in the process of setting the question papers and made a plan with her”. Both allegedly “roped in Kulkarni” and “Waghmare started looking for suitable candidates” who would purchase the paper. They said it was “found during investigation” that Waghmare was allegedly “in touch with many students as they had approached her for their tuition teachers and she had struck a deal of around Rs 10 lakh per student”.
Of that amount, Waghmare, Mandhare and Kulkarni allegedly decided to share Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh among themselves. Waghmare allegedly “arranged four-five students” and shared her plan with “an old friend”, Dhananjay Nivrutti Lokhande, who approached Shubham Khairnar, who ran a counselling business in Nashik, sources said.
Khairnar was the first suspect arrested, hours after the exam was cancelled last Tuesday. Lokhande allegedly got the NEET papers from Waghmare and passed them to Khairnar, who shared the PDF files with Yash Yadav, a Gurugram resident, and later with Jaipur residents. Yadav was also arrested.
Seeking Mandhare’s 14-day custody Sunday, the CBI told the court that a larger conspiracy was at play, and several accused were yet to be identified and arrested. “The probe is at a very initial and crucial stage and the police custody of the accused has been sought in order to unearth the larger conspiracy and to arrest the other active members of this organised paper leak gang and for the recovery of all the relevant incriminating material.”
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Opposing the application, counsel for the accused argued that Mandhare was 57 years old, a lecturer, fully cooperating with the probe, and that custody remand was unnecessary.
