New Delhi, June 20 (IANS) The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Saturday began a nationwide mock drill as part of extensive preparations for the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination on Sunday, aimed at ensuring a secure and seamless conduct of the test.

The exercise that began at 9 A.M. will continue through the day until late evening. More than 2.5 lakh security personnel will participate in the drill, which will be conducted across examination centres nationwide.

Officials said all designated test centres have already been transferred to the NTA’s control. For the re-examination, a three-layer security arrangement will be implemented at every centre to eliminate the possibility of malpractice and maintain the integrity of the examination process.

As part of the security framework, paramilitary personnel will oversee the transportation, storage and protection of question papers and answer sheets. In addition, over 5,000 examination centres across the country will remain under CCTV surveillance, supported by extensive deployment of security staff.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the Centre’s decision to temporarily restrict Telegram services across the country ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination. The court observed that the government had adhered to the legal procedure while exercising its emergency blocking powers and that the restrictions were proportionate to the situation.

Rejecting a petition filed by Telegram FZ LLC against the blocking order issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Justice Tejas Karia ruled that the temporary suspension of the messaging platform until June 22, along with the disabling of its message-editing feature until June 30, was justified given the circumstances surrounding the national medical entrance examination.

The Centre had argued that Telegram had repeatedly been misused for examination-related fraud. According to the government, the NTA had identified several channels on the platform allegedly involved in circulating fake NEET question papers and running related scams.

Authorities maintained that removing individual channels or content would not have been effective, as such groups and bots could quickly reappear. Therefore, temporary platform-wide restrictions were considered necessary ahead of the June 21 re-examination.

The NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination will be conducted on June 21 for more than 22 lakh candidates after allegations of question paper leaks emerged following the original examination held on May 3.

–IANS

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