A day after police made public 12 doctors who were held on the charge of falsified academic credentials, another doctor working at a government hospital in Rajbiraj was arrested on Sunday.
A day after police made public 12 doctors who were held on the charge of falsified academic credentials, another doctor working at a government hospital in Rajbiraj was arrested on Sunday.
Rajendra Prasad Das, an MBBS doctor at Sagarmatha Zonal Hospital, was caught by a police team from the Central Investigation Bureau.
The CIB said Das had forged his higher secondary certificates and it was with this degree that Das had got his MBBS from Russia. He had been contracted by the state-run hospital.
“This arrest is the tip of the iceberg,” said Deputy Inspector General Hemanta Malla Thakuri of the CIB.
“Many others are under investigation whose details cannot be revealed given the sensitivity of the case.” He said their probe, dubbed “Operation Quack”, would continue for months.
Police also found that some of the doctors with forged documents are working abroad. According to the Nepal Medical Council (NMC), around 200 doctors are under the scanner. The NMC is said to be keeping its
watch on doctors who had flunked the licensing examination for at least five times before passing it.
Before arresting two fake examinees in Kathmandu during a licensing examination in November last year, the NMC had sought the CIB’s help for investigation.
“The arrest of fake examinees caught us by surprise. We had never thought MBBS graduates go this far to get through the test,” said Dr Krishna Adhikari, the NMC spokesperson.
With the arrest, the NMC has begun discussions to tighten the document verification process. For this, the NMC plans to probe the documents for two years after granting the medical practitioner’s licence. According to the NMC rule, each successful candidate of the licensing test gets a two-year temporary licence before acquiring the permanent permit.
Meanwhile, Dr Manoj Kumar Sah, who was rounded up on a fake degree charge, returned to work from Saturday evening after the police found his degree to be genuine.
Dr Sah, a resident doctor at Gajuri Hospital Private Limited, was held on Friday along with 12 others from across the country, for faking their degrees. Gajuri Hospital Administrator Ram Karki confirmed that Dr Sah had returned to work. Dr Sah said he was hurt by the police behaviour.
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