BRD Hospital Tragedy: Allahabad HC grants bail to Dr Kafeel Khan

Allahabad: Dr Kafeel Khan, the pediatrician who as per most reports had run earth and heaven to obtain oxygen cylinders, but who later became one of the nine accused in the Gorakhpur case that saw more than 60 infants died due to oxygen shortage, has been granted bail.

"The honourable High Court has granted Dr Kafeel bail on the grounds that there was no evidence of the charges against him based on the material submitted to the court,” his lawyer, Sadaful Islam Jafri, said.

Khan had made headlines, and won wide popular acclaim, in August 2017 for his quick response when babies kept dying one after another due to lack of oxygen at Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College. He was initially hailed as a hero nationwide for arranging oxygen cylinders at his personal expense and initiative and for saving lives.

Soon, however, matters turned upside down for Dr Khan. Reports came out accusing him of having stolen oxygen cylinders from the hospital for his private clinic. Dr Rajiv Mishra, the principal of the medical college, was believed to have worked in connivance with Khan, mainly that he together with Rajiv Mishra, had received a commission on every hospital purchase and handled the deals with oxygen cylinder supplier, Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd.

As a result of the charges, Khan was removed from all his hospital duties as the nodal officer of BRD Medical College's Department of Pediatrics.

Dr Kafeel Khan recently wrote a letter, that was later released to the media, in which he said that he was framed and used as a scapegoat for the failure of other wings of the government.

Khan’s wife, Shabista, had alleged he was being denied medical treatment in jail and his health condition was deteriorating. Jail authorities last week took Khan for a checkup at the district hospital in Gorakhpur following her complaint.

Shabista released Khan’s letter from jail dated April 18 to the media at the Press Club of India in Delhi on Saturday. The pediatrician wrote he was on leave on August 10, 2017 when he came to know about the deaths and “rushed” to the hospital.

“The moment I got that WhatsApp message on that fateful night, I did everything a doctor, a father, a responsible citizen of India would/should do. I tried to save each and every life which was in danger due to sudden stoppage of liquid oxygen,” he wrote.

“The guilty are DM Gorakhpur, DGME (director general of medical education), principal secretary health education for not taking any action against 14 reminders sent by Pushpa Sales for its Rs 68 lakh dues. It was a total administrative failure at higher level, they did not realize the gravity and just to save themselves, they made us scapegoats and put us behind the bars.”

Khan said his life “turned upside down” when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited him the following day.

“He asked, ‘so you are Dr Kafeel? You arranged cylinders?’ I said yes sir. He got angry — ‘so you think by arranging cylinders, you became hero, I will see it’,” Khan wrote. “Yogi-ji was angry because of how this incident came into the media.”

Khan, a pediatrician at the government-run BRD Medical College Hospital, was booked along with eight others for criminal conspiracy, attempt to culpable homicide and criminal breach of trust. The police filed a charge-sheet in the case in November 2017. The trial in the case is pending before a lower court in Gorakhpur.