Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh police have lodged a fresh FIR against Dr Kafeel Khan based on a complaint by a local businessman who claims to have overheard “four-five unidentified persons” talking to someone on the phone about “uprooting the state government” and “inciting riots” while discussing the contents of a book “secretly published” by Khan, the paediatrician formerly attached with Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College.
Reacting to the FIR, which names him and “four-five unidentified persons” as the accused, Dr Kafeel Khan termed the charges invoked against him as “absurd” and told ThePrint that those targeting him may have been triggered by a letter he wrote to Shah Rukh Khan ‘thanking the actor for depicting the 2017 BRD Medical College tragedy in his film Jawan’.
At least 63 children suffering from Acute Encephalitis Syndrome had reportedly died at the state-run hospital within a span of 48 hours in August 2017 allegedly due to a shortage of liquid oxygen. The police later booked Dr Khan on charges of medical negligence. He was suspended and spent eight months in jail before the Allahabad High Court ruled that there was “no material on record” to establish that he was guilty of medical negligence.
However, on 24 February, 2020, the state government ordered a second inquiry against him, which he has challenged in court.
In the FIR lodged at Lucknow’s Krishna Nagar police station against Dr Khan and others on a complaint from Lucknow-based businessman Manish Shukla, police have now invoked sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery to make or transfer valuable security), 468 (forgery for cheating), 465 (forgery), and 471 (using forged document as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Other IPC sections invoked against him in the FIR dated 1 December, a copy of which is with ThePrint, include 504 (insult to provoke breach of peace), 505 (statement causing public mischief), 298 (uttering words intended to insult religious feelings), 295 (defilement of a place of worship/sacred object), 295A (malicious acts to outrage religious feelings), and 153-b (assertions prejudicial to national integration).
Asked about Dr Khan’s allegations that charges invoked against him in the FIR were “absurd”, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (South Zone) Shashank Singh told ThePrint: “The FIR has been lodged on whatever the complainant has alleged.”
“The complainant said he found a book on the spot. The FIR has been registered on the basis of facts he has mentioned and during investigation, we can conclude whether some facts are right or wrong. At present, the probe is in a very preliminary stage,” he added.
Also Read: This is how Yogi govt pulled off a near-miracle in Gorakhpur with encephalitis deaths
‘Conspiracy to defame govt, incite riots’
In his complaint, Shukla alleged that he was near LDA Colony on 1 December when he overheard “four-five persons using foul language for ministers and senior officials of the Uttar Pradesh government and talking about uprooting the government”.
“They were saying that Dr Kafeel Khan has secretly published a book which is being secretly circulated across the state and their own people are collecting the money for a secret plot,” he claimed in his complaint to the police.
Shukla alleged, “In this book, Dr Kafeel told the truth about deaths of infants at the medical college Gorakhpur and (unidentified men) are talking about matters related to secret distribution (of the book) among as many people as they can and say they are busy circulating a copy of the book among all the people of their community before the Lok Sabha polls.”
According to the FIR, the complainant claims to have overheard the unidentified persons saying: “At no cost should a government that adores Hindus come to power at the centre and the Yogi government too needs to be uprooted even if a riot has to be incited for this purpose.”
“I thought that Dr Kafeel Khan’s people might disturb the peace by provoking people against the government in large numbers through the spread of dislike and hatred and that they could incite riots in the state and could be terrorists,” read the FIR, quoting Shukla.
Shukla also claimed in his complaint that he called up his acquaintances and along with them confronted the unidentified persons who fled the spot. According to Shukla, he and his acquaintances did not chase the accused fearing that they may have explosives.
“I saw the book closely and read it. It did not have the name of the writer or publisher,” he claimed, adding that the book containing “fabricated and false claims” is being distributed as part of a “pre-planned conspiracy to defame the government and spread hatred”.
“There is also a possibility that all anti-State and anti-national elements may be involved in this conspiracy,” Shukla alleged in his complaint to the police.
‘Ghost of BRD is out, someone is not happy’
Dr Kafeel Khan, meanwhile, questioned the contents of the FIR lodged against him.
“The FIR reads that the complainant overheard someone talking on the phone in the dark and still he was able to read the name of the book. It states that the name of the writer and publisher are not mentioned on it,” he said. He also told ThePrint that his book The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy, published in 2021, is “easily available on Amazon”.
“I think this happened because of the release of the movie Jawan and because of my letter to Shah Rukh Khan. Jawan touched on the reality of the BRD Medical College tragedy and the ghost of BRD is out. Someone is not happy and you know who it is,” he said.
Asked to clarify whom he was referring to, he said those responsible for the tragedy are roaming free and this is exactly what he wrote in his letter to the actor.
“The FIR mentions that the book is being circulated before Lok Sabha elections and the government will be uprooted. When I was arrested under the National Security Act, the UP STF asked me similar questions. The cops had told me back then that they had got to know that I went to Japan to destabilise the government.
“I asked them why they had been mentioning Japan and why not Pakistan. This despite the fact that my passport is not in my possession and I cannot move abroad without permission from the court. They claimed that I had created a powder to kill millions and I told them that I am a paediatrician and not a scientist,” he told ThePrint.
Dr Khan said the latest charges against him are “absurd” because he is not even living in UP anymore and his family moved to Rajasthan ever since he was terminated from service.
He was removed from the paediatric department of the BRD Medical College on 13 August, 2017 — reportedly a day after the deaths of 63 infants at the state-run facility within a span of 48 hours.
He was later suspended on 22 August and subsequently arrested by the police on 3 September that year.
On 31 July, 2019, Dr Khan was suspended a second time, for allegedly forcibly treating patients at the Bahraich District Hospital and criticising the policies of the government.
Later, he was accused of delivering an inflammatory speech during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at Aligarh Muslim University in 2019 and arrested on 13 December that year.
However, the high court later quashed the criminal proceedings against him in this case.
When Khan approached the high court against his suspension order on the grounds that no inquiry had been concluded against him even after more than two years, the court noted on 29 July, 2021 that although Khan had been suspended in 2017, the inquiry against him was still ongoing till the filing of a petition which sought a response from the government.
In August 2021, the state government submitted that it had rejected the departmental inquiry ordered against him, in February 2020.
On 9 September, 2021, the Allahabad High Court stayed his second ‘suspension’ and directed the state government to conclude the probe related to his suspension within a month.
According to Dr Khan, the Allahabad High Court on 4 December gave the UP government a final chance to file a reply in the case filed by him challenging his termination from service.
In the order issued by the Lucknow bench of the High Court, Justice Rajan Roy said that “if a counter-affidavit is not filed by the respondents before the next date of hearing then the court shall proceed to hear and decide the matter considering the petition as correct”.
The matter will now come up for hearing in January next year.
Dr Khan added: “Every person has to earn his bread and butter and hence, I took up a job in Chennai and have been practising here while my family is in Jaipur. My children are growing up and they can easily check on Google what happened to me. The biggest pain that the Yogi government has given to me is to distance me from my children.
“Have you seen me make any political statements? You may have seen me upload videos of how to treat children for certain ailments but for the past few months, I have been virtually absent. I keep distance from anything political. When they invoked NSA against me, I made a speech about the integrity and unity of India but this time, I am not even in UP.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: ‘Name & shame’ posters, Kafeel Khan case, Hathras — 5 times Allahabad HC pulled up UP govt