NEET test centre innerwear removal case: NTA constitutes Fact Finding Committee, 5 women arrested

Kollam: Five women, who were on NEET exam duty held in an educational institute in Kerala, were arrested on Tuesday in Kollam for allegedly asking girl students to remove their innerwear for appearing for the test held on Sunday, police said.

Police told PTI that they were arrested after hours-long interrogation by police probing the case. While three women work for an agency hired by NTA, two work for the private educational institute at Mar Thoma Institute of Information Technology in Ayur where the incident happened.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has also constituted a fact-finding committee to ascertain the facts in the alleged incident.

The row started when a father of a 17-year-old girl in Kerala said that the other females who took the NEET UG 2022 exam on July 17 were told to take their innerwear off in order to take the test.

“It has been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Education through various media reports that an incident allegedly happened in one of the Centre’s of NEET UG 2022 near Kollam district in Kerala. NTA has already issued a clarification in this regard,” said the Ministry of Education.

Dismissing claims of the girl. NTA said that it has “not received any complaint in this regard”. The NTA in response to the media reports said that it sought immediate comments from the Centre Superintendent and the Independent Observer as well as the City Coordinator, Kollam district.

R Bindu, the minister of higher education for Kerala, appealed in a letter to the union education minister on Monday for action to be taken against the friskers. Bindu denounced the incident, calling it an act of irresponsibility and a violation of human rights from the side of NTA.