Senior govt doctor in Kerala booked for sexual harassment of his junior
Kochi (PTI): Kerala police on Sunday registered a case against a senior doctor of the General Hospital here who was accused of making unwarranted sexual advances towards a junior doctor by forcibly hugging and kissing her in his private consultation room four years ago.
The case was registered against the doctor, a general physician and who was then Head of the Department of Medicine, in 2019 when the incident happened, police said.
"A case was registered based on a complaint received through e-mail. The statement of the complainant will be recorded soon and necessary action will be taken accordingly," a senior police official told PTI.
A female doctor had recently, through a Facebook post, made the allegations prompting Kerala Health Minister Veena George to order an investigation into the complaint.
In the Facebook post, the doctor, who is currently employed abroad, claimed that the then Head of the Department of Medicine had "physically assaulted" her in his private consultation room outside the hospital quarters.
She said she was an intern at the time and had gone to him to make an official complaint against a senior consultant.
"I went alone, as it was 7 pm and I was getting ready to leave. He hugged and kissed me on my face, holding me close to him. I froze, and pulled myself away. I complained to the higher officials the next day. No action was initiated initially. I was in the middle of my internship and didn't further make any complaints as he was a senior official and had the power to sabotage my internship certification process. I was scared," she wrote.
She said that the senior doctor was recently transferred to another hospital, and no strict action was taken against him other than stalling his promotion.
The young doctor said it took her years to even talk about this issue openly.
"I want to expose the predator and make sure everyone knows about his antics. And the female doctors, including myself, whom he abused, should receive justice. Such doctors are a disgrace to society and must not be allowed to practise. I'm hoping my post reaches the right people, who will take stringent action against such perverts," she said.
The health department had also initiated a probe whether there were any attempts to downplay the incident in 2019.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
