Bhaktapur police said Thursday that it has launched a search operation to find Durga Prasai, executive director of the Jhapa-based B&C Medical College.

Earlier on Thursday, responding to a complaint filed by Dr Shri Krishna Giri, vice-chairman of Medical Education Commission, the District Administration Office, Bhaktapur, had issued an arrest warrant against Prasai.

Giri on Tuesday filed a slander and defamation complaint against Prasai.

"We have received a warrant for his [Prasai's] arrest," Sabin Pradhan, chief of the Metropolitan Police Range, Bhaktapur, told the Post. "We have also communicated to Jhapa police. But he was not found in Jhapa, and the search is on."

Prasai and Giri last week had resorted to accusation and counter-accusation over the affiliation of B&C Medical College.

Calling a press conference, Prasai had accused Giri of demanding Rs200 million to facilitate B&C Medical College's affiliation. Hours later, Giri had organised a press meet where he rebuffed the charges levelled by Prasai against him as baseless.

A day after Giri filed a complaint against Prasai, the latter lodged a case against Giri at the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority and the Department of Money Laundering Investigation.

Earlier last year, in July, a slander charge was filed against Prasai at the National Human Rights Commission for publicly suggesting that female Nepali medical students in Bangladesh were sleeping with their professors to get medical degrees.

Prasai’s rise as a rich businessman from a humble background over recent years has drawn enough media attention because of his connections with high-profile politicians.

Last year, Prasai, who was trying to use his political connections to get affiliation for his medical college in Jhapa, hosted a lunch for Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and ruling Nepal Communist Party Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

A photo of the trio posted on social media had gone viral and earned ridicule. And the particular variety of rice, called marsi, which they were said to have savoured, had entered Nepali lexicon as a synonym for dishonesty.

In recent years, medical colleges in Nepal have emerged as a business for those with political connections to make a quick buck. Dr Govinda KC, who retired recently from the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital where he served as an orthopaedic surgeon, had held a series of hunger strikes demanding reforms in the medical sector.

The Medical Education Commission is the outcome of Dr KC’s several hunger strikes. But as politicisation has corrupted other agencies in Nepal, the council, too, has run into controversy since its establishment. Giri was appointed vice-chairman of the council in the interest of Education Minister Giriraj Mani Pokhrel, according to officials who are familiar with the developments.

Prasai, during his press conference, said Giri demanded Rs 200 million, as it was not easy to grant affiliation to B&C Medical College without sharing the spoils with some influential leaders.

In June 2017, while warning of yet another hunger strike, Dr KC had alleged that Dahal had invested in B&C Medical College. Dahal was a guest at the inauguration of the college.