Three DMCH employees were suspended on charge of forgery following the recovery.

When a patient went to see Dr Zahir at 9:30am, the doctor found that the patient's ticket did not have water print of the DMCH monogram on the Tk 5 ticket's right side.

He informed DMCH Director General Nazmul Huda about the matter, who immediately seized all tickets of the OPD counter. Running a check, the officials found 400 of the 2,000 tickets fake.

The director in an instant order suspended ticket sellers Abdul Mannan and Mofazzal Hossain Khan and Office Assistant Nuruzzaman, who supply the tickets every morning to the ticket counter. A general diary (GD) was also lodged with Ramna Police Station against them.

Meanwhile, a four-member committee with Prof. FM Siddique of the Department of Medicine as its head was formed to probe the incident. Other members of the committee are Dr Saifullah, Dr Khwaja Habib and Dr Mazhar Shaheen.

Sources said the sale of counterfeit tickets from the OPD ticket counter has been going on for a long time. "Some dishonest DMCH employees are carrying out the act in connivance with top officials for over ten years," said a senior DMCH doctor, seeking anonymity.

After printing at the BG Press at Tejgaon, the tickets are kept at the DMCH store and later at the deputy director's room from where an office assistant takes them to the counter every morning.

DMCH sources said the people involved in the exercise are themselves responsible for the counterfeiting. While selling the tickets, they mix up the counterfeit tickets with the real ones.

More than 1,400 tickets are sold at the OPD counter from 8:00am to 2:30pm a day, and the DMCH gets proceeds from the sale of 800 to 1,200 tickets. The rest of the tickets are fake and the proceeds from their sale do not go to the coffers.

In 2000, five DMCH employees were caught selling counterfeit tickets and a committee was formed to investigate the matter. However, no action was taken against the accused.