The health ministry today suspended four staff over missing of 17 important files from the ministry.
The staff are- computer operators Ayesha Siddika and Joseph Sardar, and peons Badal Chandra Goswami and Mintu Mia.
Secretary of the Department of Health Md Nur Ali told the reporters that the decision was taken on Tuesday following an investigation.
He said departmental action is also being taken against the four employees.
At least 17 files containing sensitive information mysteriously went missing from the ministry.
The files – mostly purchase documents – were stored at the office of the Medical Education and Family Welfare Division at the Secretariat.
The missing files include multiple documents related to purchases for Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College, Rajshahi Medical College and other medical colleges, vehicle allocation and purchase-related documents for training schools, data on cervical and breast cancer screening programme, documents on health directorate purchases, and project files under the Bureau of Health Education.
Health ministry Deputy Secretary Nadira Haider filed a general diary (GD) at Shahbagh police station on 28 October after the incident.
At the time, the ministry also formed a four-member probe committee to look into the matter. Additional secretary of the ministry (Administration Division) Md Shah Alam headed the committee consisting of joint secretary of the ministry (medical education) Md Ahsan Kabir, Deputy Secretary (Medical Education-1) Mohammad Abdul Kader and Deputy Secretary Mallika Khatun.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police started a shadow investigation into the matter following the GD. A team of CID police went to the secretariat on 31 October and collected evidence from the room the files went missing from.
CID officials questioned the staff in the room. Later, six employees of the room were taken to the CID office in a microbus at around 1:15 pm. They are - Joseph, Ayesha, Badal, Bari, Mintu and Faisal.
