NEET re-exam: Nagpur student 'shocked' to get Abu Dhabi centre; NTA says he chose

A student from Nagpur in Maharashtra was allotted an examination centre in Abu Dhabi for Sunday’s (June 21) NEET UG 2026 re-examination by the National Testing Agency (NTA), prompting his parents to raise the issue with the NTA which claimed that the student himself asked for that centre.

The student, Abdulla Talib, had given preference to Nagpur, Wardha, and Bhandara centres for the examination. However, when he received his examination card issued by the NTA, he found that he was allotted an examination centre in Abu Dhabi, his father, Dr. Mohammed Talib, told ANI news agency.

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The mix-up came to light on a day when a nationwide mock drill was underway across the country on Saturday ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination as part of the efforts to ensure smooth, secure and transparent conduct of the medical entrance test.

The student’s parents raised the issue with the NTA, which assured them of allotting the new examination centre. It said that the candidate himself had requested a city change.

Later, a fresh admit card was issued with a Medical College located in Nagpur.

What NTA said

“NTA's web-activity records indicate that the city change in this case was made through the candidate's own registered login during the open correction window, with a consistent single-user access pattern,” NTA said in a post on its X (Formerly Twitter) account.

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Further, it said, “Despite the Abu Dhabi centre being chosen by the candidate, the NTA received an informal request on the evening of June 19 (just 48 hours before the exam) to change the centre to Nagpur. NTA personnel immediately initiated the change and contacted the candidate's father on 19th evening itself to help them complete the formal process.

“NTA has observed that on 3 occasions, one - the centre was changed to Abu Dhabi using candidate’s credentials and twice it was previewed that the centre is Abu Dhabi. Despite that NTA has accorded to aspirant’s request and the change of centre was actioned.”

Student’s father ‘shocked’

The student’s father Talib told the news agency, “After the admit card was downloaded at 4 pm yesterday, we found the Centre mentioned to be a school in Abu Dhabi. We were really shocked as we had not given anything as such in our options. We dialled up the helpline number. They told us to send them a mail. When we sent a mail, we received a call that we will be issued a fresh admit card by 4 pm on Saturday. We had given 3 districts as options but we now demand that Nagpur be given us as the Centre because he is shocked. There is no time to go to any other district. He cried a lot yesterday and did not even want to write the exam. But his mother tried to convince him. If he is convinced, he will appear for the exam. He does not even have a passport."

"The grievance is being addressed and the candidate will be allocated a centre in Nagpur, after due verification, in the next few hours," NTA responded.

Talib later confirmed that the centre was changed to Nagpur. "Just five minutes ago we received the fresh admit card with the exam centre in Nagpur. We are very thankful to the Agency for this prompt action. We are also thankful to the media for raising this issue. Abdullah is not ready to write the exam again but we are convincing him. Now that he has the fresh admit card, we will speak with him again. I can't express in words how tense we were...They should take ensure that nothing like this occurs in the future. No one else should go through what we had to."

The re-examination will be conducted on June 21 from 2 pm to 5:15 pm in the pen-and-paper mode across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad for over 22.79 lakh candidates.

The initial exam was cancelled amid allegations of the paper leak, and the case was handed over to the CBI.