Surgeon robbed by anaesthetist

By Gayan Kumara Weerasingha

In a bizarre turn of events it has been found that an anaesthetist working in the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) has been remanded for stealing and using a credit card belonging to a doctor working at the same hospital.
The anaesthetist , a resident of Trincomalee, was arrested by a police team led by IP Nihal Francis, the OIC of the crimes branch of the Maradana police, as a result of an investigationon a complaint lodged at the Maradana police station on December 22 by Suranga Wijerathna, a surgeon at the NHSL.
The complainant is a resident of Devalegama and worked at ward numbers 30 and 40 A. According to his complaint, he had changed into his surgery gown in his changing room and went to the theatre around 8am and returned to the room around 12pm. When he looked for his purse, he found his credit card missing. He immediately informed the bank and had the card cancelled. But by then purchases worth Rs 65,750 had been made from a jewellery shop in Maradana. After being informed by the bank of the fraud he lodged a complaint with the police. Meanwhile, the bank had also lodged a complaint with the police. Police found that the credit card had been used at 10.35am on December 21 to buy a bracelet worth Rs 36,750 and a necklace worth Rs 29,000. The camera at the jewellery shop had pictures of the culprit. However, doctor Suranga could not identify the suspect caught on camera as it was not clear enough. Subsequently, police got a few workers from the NHSL to identify the person shown in the video and they identified the suspect to be a doctor from NHSL. The suspect is a 34-year-old anaesthetist. He had entered the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Jaffna in 2002 and had joined the government service in 2005. His first hospital was Kurunegala Teaching Hospital and he had come to NHSL in 2007. He was born in Trincomalee and his wife and children lived in Batticaloa. He had taken a flat in Maligawatte on rent where he lived alone.
The suspect was arrested on January 15. On interrogation, police found that two days after he bought them he had sold the bracelet and necklace for Rs 46,000 to another jewellery shop.
The suspect was produced before the Maligawatte magistrate’s court and was ordered to be remanded.