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Who is Dr.Kafeel Khan?
Dr Kafeel Khan was a common doctor in BRD Medical College. Just like thousands of other doctors who work in different hospitals across the country. But one incident changed his entire life.
Gorakhpur Tragedy
In the night of 10th August 2017 in a the government hospital in the constituency of Yogi Adityanath (Gorakhpur), the central oxygen pipeline started beeping, indicating a low supply of the gas. The doctors and staff knew that the supply could be maintained up to two hours only with the help of emergency cylinders. But nobody knew what to do after that.
At that time Dr. Kafeel was the head of the encephalitis ward and he knew that children who were victims of encephalitis, could not stay alive without an oxygen supply. So they had to arrange oxygen cylinders from somewhere.
In that critical situation, Dr Kafeel Khan decided that he would get oxygen cylinders from his friend’s private nursing home to save the lives of children. He went and returned with 12 oxygen cylinders.
That night as many as 30 children lost their lives due to lack of oxygen. But many people believed that if Dr Kafeel had not brought oxygen cylinders then many more children would have lost their lives.
The very next day Dr Kafeel was praised for his work by the media and public. But the government was very angry with him because as this news leaked into the media, the UP government and chief minister Yogi Adityanath was blamed because this was a government hospital, which was not paying bills due to lack of funds from the state government.
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The oxygen supplier had to disconnect their oxygen supply because they were not paid at the time due to which this situation occurred. There was no maintenance and the management of this hospital was extremely poor.
Many believe that the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath was angry with Dr Kafeel Khan after this incident because he thought that Dr Kafeel had leaked this news to the media.
After 3 days of this incident, Dr Kafeel was removed from his position on charges of “carrying out private practice”. On the same day, misinformation was spread about him on social media to defame him. Several new charges were alleged – sometimes there were rape charges and sometimes there were charges of carrying out private practice. He was labelled as a traitor. A lot of fake news was spread against him.
Several doctors stood in support of Dr. Kafeel and stated that he had been made a scapegoat in the incident as someone had to held responsible for the tragedy.
On 2nd September 2017, Dr Kafeel was arrested after a court had issued a non- bailable warrant. In November 2017, the police files a charge sheet against him. On 10th April 2018, Indian Medical Association stands in support of Dr.Kafeel and reported the case against him as a conspiracy and also that he is consciously being accused.
On 18th April 2018, Dr.Kafeel wrote a 10-page long letter from jail explaining what happened that night and how the government made him a scapegoat. In the past 7 months, Dr.Kafeel's family had tried for bail 6 times but there was no result.
Finally, on 25th April 2018 the Allahabad High Court granted him bail and also said that there was no need for custody. The high court stated that there is no evidence of medical negligence against Dr.Kafeel.
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On 11th June 2018, there was a life-threatening attack on Dr Kafeel's brother. He was shot by some unidentified men on a bike. But, fortunately, he was saved. It was almost a year since Dr.Kafeel lost his job and he came out and publicly said that he was going bankrupt. He did not have enough money to run his family.
On 22nd September 2018, the children in a hospital in Uttar Pradesh developed a mystery fever and Dr.Kafeel reached there to help the children. Just before he was going to address the media, the police arrested him. The very next after getting bail on 24th September 2018 Dr.Kafeel was once again arrested by Gorakhpur police and this time, it was said that he was arrested for fraud.
The policed alleged that he had opened a bank account using fake documents and transactions worth 2 crores were made in that bank account. This all happened in 2009 and now Dr.Kafeel was arrested in this case. He was again granted bail.
Let us now come to March 2019. The Allahabad High Court gave 3 months to Yogi Adityanath government to fast track the ongoing enquiry on Dr.Kafeel Khan. On 27th September 2019 , the media showed that the four ongoing charges against Dr.Kafeel were cleared by an inquiry and that he was given a clean chit.
A few hours after this, the UP government said it would be wrong to say that he was given a clean chit. A few days later, the government launched a new investigation against Dr.Kafeel Khan once again. This time the reason was for spreading incorrect information about the inquiry report and for making anti-government remarks during his suspension.
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It seems like the previous reasons did not find a way to go ahead, so some new reasons were thought of by the UP government. On 13th December Dr Kafeel gave a speech at AMU University on CAA.
Irrespective of whether you support this act or not but I think every person has a right to support an act or to oppose it. Every person can express his/her opinion freely. In the speech, he said:-
Mota Bhai (Amit Shah) is teaching everyone to become Hindu or Muslim but not a human being. He does not believe in the Constitution and the CAA would make Muslims a second category citizen and later they will be harassed with the implementation of NRC.
An FIR was filed against him after this speech. The FIR was filed on the basis that he was making attempts to disturb communal harmony and that he was promoting hatred between Hindus and Muslims.
On 30th January 2020, Dr.Kafeel was once again arrested by the police for this speech. He stayed in jail for 10 days and on 10th February, he was granted bail by Aligarh Chief Judicial Magistrate. But still, he wasn’t released from jail for the next three days despite several orders from the magistrate.
On 13th February, he was granted bail from the judiciary but the government comes with a new plan to keep him in jail. He was charged under the National Security Act (NSA). Under NSA, a detention order was passed against him saying that it was necessary to keep him in jail. Basically, according to the government if he is released then the public order would get disrupted.
On 19th March 2020, Dr.Kafeel wrote a letter from jail to PM Narendra Modi. In his letter, he requested that he should be released so he could help his nation to the fight against Covid-19 pandemic, since he was a doctor and our country, is in extreme need of doctors at this moment.
Just before his detention under the NSA was about to get over, the limit was extended by UP government for another three months. On 6th July 2020, he wrote another letter from jail telling that in the jail in which he is kept in at Mathura is in a terrible condition. He claims that about 150 inmates are sharing 1 toilet due to which the toilet stinks of urine. There are frequent electric cuts and the heat in the jail is unbearable.
On 27th July, Allahabad High Court defers the date of his next hearing to 5th August. Even today, Dr Kafeel Khan is still in jail.
This story tells us that if a common man who does his duty honestly and if he falls into the trap of this system someday then to what extent our system can go to suppress him. So, this is our duty to support Dr.Kafeel Khan.
Jatin Panwar
Content Writer
@DayLightMedia
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