Bihar certificates of Nepal docs under lens

KATHMANDU/RAXAUL: About 100 doctors were arrested in Nepal for allegedly using forged school certificates from Bihar to get their medical degrees and jobs in government

KATHMANDU/RAXAUL: About 100 doctors were arrested in Nepal for allegedly using forged school certificates from Bihar to get their medical degrees and jobs in government as well as private institutions across the Himalayan country.

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The arrests were made after a six-month investigation, codenamed “Operation Quack”, conducted by the Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB). The agency arrested 17 doctors with fake credentials in February.

Most of these doctors arrested over the past three days had allegedly procured fake mark-sheets of the Bihar Intermediate Education Council (BIEC), which conducts the class 12 exam.

The CIB deputy inspector general, Navraj Dhakal, confirmed the arrest of 100 doctors. “We have information that 3,000 doctors in Nepal possess fake intermediate certificates procured from Bihar,” he said. “Their MBBS degrees are also under the scanner.”

The Nepal crackdown comes when Bihar, notorious for incidents of mass cheating, is engulfed in a massive exam fraud that was exposed after this year’s class 12 toppers failed to answer rudimentary questions during a media interaction.

The arrested doctors were produced in a Kathmandu court on Sunday and remanded in police custody. Sources said doctors practising in 10 districts, including 15 from Kathmandu Valley, were among those picked up by police.

Some of these doctors were associated with reputed hospitals. The probe revealed there were no records for 14 of the arrested doctors with the BIEC. CIB sleuths will visit Bihar on Tuesday to verify the intermediate certificates.

The arrests triggered a nationwide protest by the Nepal Medical Association (NMA), which said doctors were being deliberately harassed.

NMA vice-president Pramod Sharaff blamed the Bihar education department for the scandal, saying people under the scanner “had properly taken the examination”.