Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains on Monday told the state Assembly that a Haryana-based cheating syndicate deployed modified mobile phones, concealed wireless earpieces, and other sophisticated gadgets to rig a pharmacy examination at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences. The disclosure came during a legislative debate on a censure motion over repeated paper leaks across India and the treatment of protesting students.

How the Cheating Operation Worked

Bains was categorical that the incident was not a conventional paper leak. 'This was not a paper leak. This was a technology-driven cheating operation busted by Punjab Police. For years the Haryana government looked away while this syndicate destroyed the future of thousands of students,' he said. The minister directed a pointed remark at Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, advising him to 'fix his own backyard before coming to Punjab to set the political agenda.'

Punjab's Rise in School Education Rankings

Bains used the Assembly floor to present a broader account of Punjab's educational turnaround under the Sikhya Kranti initiative. He said the state had climbed from 27th position in 2020 to become the number one ranked state in the NITI Aayog School Education Quality Report 2026, overtaking Kerala — a result he described as a historic milestone for government schools in the state.

NEET-UG Results and AI in Schools

On academic outcomes, the minister informed the House that 882 students from Punjab's government schools qualified NEET-UG 2026, representing a cumulative increase of more than 100 per cent from 437 qualifiers in 2024. He also announced that Punjab has become the first state in India to introduce artificial intelligence as a mainstream subject from Classes 1 to 12, covering 25,172 schools and nearly 31.5 lakh students. The curriculum was developed after studying best practices from Singapore, Finland, the UAE, and the US.

Heritage Invoked in Defence of Punjab

Bains anchored his address in Punjab's intellectual and cultural legacy, invoking figures from Sri Guru Nanak Dev and Shaheed Bhagat Singh to Nobel laureate Dr Har Gobind Khorana, fibre optics pioneer Dr Narinder Singh Kapany, and semiconductor memory innovator Dr Gurtej Singh Sandhu. The invocation was framed as a rebuttal to what he characterised as attempts to defame the state amid the national paper-leak controversy.

What Comes Next

The Assembly debate signals that the Punjab government intends to keep political pressure on Haryana over the syndicate's alleged operations. With the NEET-UG cheating controversy still reverberating nationally, Punjab's claims of a technology-driven bust — and its counter-narrative of educational progress — are likely to remain contested terrain in the coming weeks.