Protesters alleged they were forcibly removed from the site and taken to distant police stations despite demonstrating peacefully.
NEW DELHI — Allegations of large-scale irregularities and question paper leaks in the NEET-UG 2026 examination triggered massive protests in the national capital on Tuesday, as members of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) staged a demonstration outside Shastri Bhawan demanding accountability from the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Union Government.
The protest, organised in front of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, came in the wake of the cancellation of the May 3 NEET-UG 2026 examination following allegations of widespread paper leaks. Demonstrators accused the NTA of repeated failures and called for urgent structural reforms in the country’s examination system.
According to SFI leaders, Delhi Police detained over 25 student activists during the protest, including SFI All India President Adarsh M. Saji, Joint Secretary Aishe Ghosh, and Delhi State President Sooraj Elamon. Protesters alleged they were forcibly removed from the site and taken to distant police stations despite demonstrating peacefully.
The student organisation described the detentions as an “authoritarian response” to democratic dissent and questioned why students were being punished for demanding a fair and transparent examination process.
The controversy surrounding NEET-UG 2026 has intensified after reports suggested that nearly 600 marks out of the total 720 had been compromised due to leaks. SFI alleged that around 15 questions were circulated in advance through a “probable question paper,” while nearly 120 Chemistry questions were reportedly leaked verbatim before the examination.
Calling the latest controversy part of a larger pattern, SFI pointed to previous examination scandals, including the NEET and UGC-NET controversies of 2024, arguing that repeated paper leaks and cancellations have eroded public confidence in the national examination system.
“Irregularities in NEET examinations have become a routine affair,” the students leaders said while addressing the protest demonstration. They accused the government of failing to introduce meaningful accountability mechanisms despite repeated scandals.
It is reported that the nearly 22 lakh students affected by the paper leak are now subjected to unnecessary psychological pressure for which they are not responsible. Paper leakages occur due to the connivance of corrupt and vested interests who are insensitive to the students’ concerns.
The left student wing also alleged a growing nexus between the NTA and private coaching centres, claiming that competitive examinations had increasingly become “profit-driven and opaque.” It argued that lakhs of students were being subjected to emotional, financial, and academic stress while authorities continued to operate without transparency.
SFI leaders demanded a comprehensive investigation into the alleged paper leak, compensation for affected students, and the dismantling of what it called the “inefficient and unscientific” centralised examination system managed by the NTA.
They reiterated that students across the country will continue to resist the commercialisation, privatisation and destruction of public education. Adding that the future of lakhs of students cannot be sacrificed to corruption, administrative incompetence and authoritarianism.
Meanwhile, the parent organisation of SFI, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also condemned the leakage of the NEET exam paper and demanded a comprehensive enquiry into the leak, ensure strict punishment to those responsible and immediately put measures into place so that the affected students’ future is not put into jeopardy .
The party reminded that it was not the first time that exam papers have been leaked after the union government assigned the task of conducting exams to the National Testing Agency (NTA). The NTA should be disbanded immediately, and conduct of examinations should be decentralised, with the responsibility of conducting exams being handed over to the concerned government agencies, as earlier, it added.
NSUI protest
Congress party’s student wing, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) also organised a huge protest outside the Shastri Bhawan on Tuesday, against the alleged paper leak in NEET-UG 2026.
Several members of the NSUI were seen participating in the protest, while holding placards that read ‘PM compromised, paper compromised’, ‘paper leak, Modi sarkar weak’, and ‘doctor ki degree bikao hain’ (doctor’s degree is for sale).
Protesters also raised the slogans like “chaatro pe attyachar bandh karo’ (stop oppression of students), amidst heavy barricading and police presence at the venue.
The angry students also burnt effigies during the demonstration against the cancellation of the medical entrance exam that was held on May 3 following a multi-state paper leak scandal.
The examinationfor students seeking admission to undergraduate courses in medical colleges will now be held again on dates to be notified separately.
