CID fake doctors scan

A four-member team of the Criminal Investigation Department that is probing the fake doctors case spoke to officials of the district health department here today and collected documents related to the recruitment of two such medical practitioners.

Snehasish Chakraborty and Khushinath Haldar had been working with fake medical degrees at government run health centres in Dhumpara of Jalpaiguri and Rangalibajna of Alipurduar for the past few years.

Both Chakraborty and Haldar were recruited on contractual basis under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and were arrested by police last month.

Later, they were handed over to the CID, sources said.

A source in the CID said: "A probe was initiated after more such doctors were arrested in other parts of the state, including North Dinajpur district in north Bengal. Our team is regularly visiting Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar to collect more information about them. Also, documents and information have been sought from health officials concerned as to how these persons, who had produced fake degrees, were recruited as doctors."

Today, the CID team spoke to Jagannath Sarkar, the CMOH of Jalpaiguri, for around one-and-a-half hour.

They also called the accountant of Sulkapara block health centre where one of the accused doctors was earlier posted.

The CMOH said: "The NRHM had sent us a list of some doctors for verification of their degrees. After verification, the registration number furnished by Chakraborty did not match with the records of the state medical council. A complaint was filed against him."

CID sources said the documents like details of the alleged fake doctors' salaries, prescriptions written by them and some other documents had been obtained from the health centres and the district administration.

"On Monday, the CID had visited the health centre in Alipurduar I block where Haldar had been posted and collected information. Yesterday, the team also spoke with Puran Sharma, the CMOH of Alipurduar, for over one hour," a CID source said.(TT)