CID arrests DGHS machine-operator over medical question leak

The Criminal Investigation Department has arrested Directorate General of Health Services employee Abdus Salam, one of the alleged masterminds behind medical admission question paper leaks.

Salam, a machine operator at a DGHS press, had been in hiding since July and he was arrested from Banasree in Dhaka on Monday, said CID officials.

Salam and his cousin Jasim Uddin formed the question leak racket, said special superintendent of CID Ashraful Alam at a press briefing on Tuesday.

Later in the afternoon, the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court allowed the CID to take Salam in its custody for interrogation for five days.

Jasim along with five of his associates were arrested by the CID in mid-July.

Salam was earlier suspended by the DGHS as he was charged with murder in a case filed by the CID in Manikganj in 2015.

CID investigators accumulated evidences that showed that medical and dental admission question papers were leaked from a press on the ground floor of the DGHS building at Mohakhali, said officials.

A ring of insiders and outsiders of the health directorate was behind the offence while some coaching centres and doctors were also involved, they said.

CID officials earlier said that the ring had leaked admission test question papers since 2013.

The ring bagged around Tk 50 crore from the business in 2013-2018, they said.

Savings certificates worth Tk 21.27 crore in 38 accounts of Jasim and his wife’s bank savings worth around Tk 4 crore were traced, they said.

CID official Ashraful said that they were trying to identify the students who got admission with the leaked question papers in the last few years and then trace more members of the gang with their information.

Medical question paper leak came to public attention in 2015 when many students alleged that the questions of the tests were widely available on social media a day before the examinations.

The authorities denied the allegations and the admission tests were held on the scheduled date in the year. 

Thousands of students sit for the unified MBBS admission tests for 10,000 seats for at 37 government medical colleges and 70 private medical colleges a year.

CID investigators said that Salam with the help of influential department officials used to leak questions from the press and Jasim used to spread the leaked questions all over the country in exchange of money using a strong network.

They said that hundreds of students got enrolled into medical and dental colleges through the gang.

DGHS director for medical education AKM Ahsan Habib earlier told New Age that they learnt about the allegations through media reports and would investigate it.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net