Despite the government's suspension on Northern Private Medical College's educational activities in Rangpur five years ago, the medical college authorities have continued student enrollment, taking a huge amount of money from them.

In a meeting on June 12, 2016, then Health Minister Md Nasim had instructed the suspension of three institutions including Northern Private Medical College in Rangpur. He said the medical college was not following proper admission protocol, and there was a lack of facilities, crisis of skilled manpower, and shortage of patients and required beds.

The college also did not operate on its own land.

Minister Nasim had also said that the students of the suspended institutions will be transferred to other local institutions with adequate facilities.

Five years have passed since, and the students of Northern Private Medical College are in big trouble with their academics as lessons have almost come to a halt due to lack of teachers and other facilities.

There are 250 students enrolled in different years at the medical college; 20 of them are foreign nationals.

They said that when they sought transfer as per the minister's instructions, the college authorities told them to continue their studies at Northern Private Medical, and said they will see to the matter of suspension.

The authorities did not provide transfer certificates, and continued to keep students previous educational certificates in their custody.

ALLEGATIONS OF SEVERE MISMANAGEMENT

Navid Rahman, who paid Tk 10 lakh last October to get admitted at Northern Private Medical College, said, "The authorities assured me that it's a government-approved college by showing us documents. I now realise that they fooled me and my parents."

"The students have been cheated. Every month, the college makes us pay tuition of Tk 8,000," he added.

"Apparently the authorities have been enrolling students despite the suspension from health ministry. Now us students are paying the price. We came here with the dream of becoming doctors but those dreams are being crushed by the greediness of medical college authorities," said final-year student Ashraful Islam, who enrolled in 2014-15 academic session.

There are 20 students in the college who came from Nepal. They have paid Tk 20,00,000 as admission fees.

Demonstrating students told The Daily Star that the college maintained no facilities relevant to their academic area.

The infrastructure falls short in every aspect, and there are no ICU and CCU facilities.

The medical college claims it has 500 beds, but in reality, it has less than half that number of beds. Patients do not come to the hospital as there are no specialist doctors or laboratory facilities.

Moreover, Northern Private Medical College has no affiliation with Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC) and Rajshahi University, he alleged. The college has a few lecturers but there are no doctors working as professors, said the students.

Due to these issues, Rangpur district's health authorities visited the hospital a year ago and ordered suspension of all kinds of activities.

Internships of around 100 students remain pending, setting them back in their career paths.

STUDENTS DEMAND TRANSFER

Demanding migration to other private colleges, the students have been demonstrating in front of the college for since February 10, but to no avail.

For the past 26 days, they have been demanding migration to another private medical college free of charge. They said they will continue until the demand is met.

The students said the college authorities hired goons to disrupt their demonstration, and one student was injured in the incident on Monday.

The students demanded that the college authorities unconditionally return all educational certificates and other documents that they are keeping in their custody. They also demanded punishment for those who attacked a fellow student.

Last Thursday, the students handed over a memorandum to Divisional Commissioner in Rangpur, seeking his help to recover their academic life.

Rangpur Divisional Commissioner Abdul Wahab Bhuiyan said he would look into the matter.

Begum Rokeya Lavely, chairman of Northern Private Medical College in Rangpur, said a conspiracy against the college is going, and students have been agitating with outsiders' provocation.

She also said the college has updated all relevant documents but they have been facing problem getting reapproved to enroll students and provide treatment from the ministry of health.

Begum Rokeya refused to answer further questions from this correspondent, and told him to never call her again.

However, insider sources at the college alleged mismanagement and conflict among those running the medical college.