17 Missing Files: Health ministry suspends 4 staffers

The health and family welfare ministry yesterday suspended four staffers after 17 of its files went missing 19 days ago.

Maidul Islam Prodhan, senior public relations officer of the ministry, confirmed the matter to The Daily Star.

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Around noon, Ali Noor, secretary of the ministry's medical education division, told journalists that the investigation committee has identified four employees involved in the crime and the divisional punishment is underway.

The suspended staffers are Joseph Sardar and Ayesha Siddiqa, stenographers/computer operators of the purchase and collection-2 section; Badal Chandra Goswami and Mintu Mia, office assistants of the admin section.

The files, mostly related to purchases, went missing on October 28 from the medical education division of the health ministry at the secretariat, and were kept in room-29 of building-3 at the secretariat, adjacent to the room of Shahadat Hossain, additional secretary (development) of the division.

Joseph Sardar and Ayesha Siddiqa's worked in that very room.

The health ministry filed a general diary with Shahbagh police station the same day.

The files included purchase documents related to Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital in Gazipur and Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, the National Institute of Population Research and Training's data on breast and cervical cancer screening programmes, and purchases and vehicle purchase of different training schools, according to the GD.

They also include documents of the Directorate of Nursing and Midwifery and the Directorate of Medical Education.

The health ministry formed a probe body, led by Md Shah Alam, additional secretary (administration) of the health education division, on October 30.

The Criminal Investigation Department of police has so far interrogated nine employees of the ministry and one contractor from Rajshahi, but they could not get any clue yet, a CID officials told The Daily Star recently.