New Delhi: In an emotional appeal before journalists in the city, Dr Shabista Khan on Saturday appealed for the safety of her husband Dr Kafeel Khan, who has been lodged in Gorakhpur prison for the last eight months.
“My husband is a heart patient, his blood pressure is running high, he is also suffering from depression. Who will bear the responsibility if something happens to him,” asked Dr Shabista Khan.
Dr Kafeel is among the nine accused in the BRD Medical College and Hospital case involving death of 63 children in Uttar Pradesh, including infants, in August 2017 due to disruption in supply of oxygen to the medical college owing to non-payment of dues to the vendor.
He, along with three other doctors, has been lodged in Gorakhpur prison for the last eight months, while the trial in the case has not even started.
Dr Shabista and other family members and friends of Dr Kafeel Khan alleged that there has been a deliberate attempt to make scapegoats of innocent doctors whose bail hearings are deliberately being forestalled.
She said that her husband was being treated like a criminal.
“It’s as if he, who worked everyday from 7 in the morning till 9 in the night to save lives of children in Gorakhpur and came to work that fateful day despite being on leave, has committed some ghastly crime. Like an animal he has been pushed into a confinement which is meant for 60 people, where 138 inmates are right now lodged. It is his ninth month in confinement and his trial hasn’t even begun,” said Khan's wife.
From his jail cell, Dr Kafeel Khan recently penned a letter recounting the torrid last nine months of his life.
“I yelled/screamed to everyone to focus on saving lives. I cried, actually everyone in the team cried to see the havoc created by the administrative failure to pay the dues to the liquid oxygen suppliers – resulting in such a grave situation,” a media organisation quoted him saying in the letter.
He has described his life in prison as “hell”, where 150 prisoners are cramped in one room, with “millions of mosquitoes at night and thousands of flies in the day. Trying to swallow food to live, bathe half-naked with shit in the toilet with a broken door. Waiting for Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday to meet my family.”
Dr Shabista said she was now planning to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking bail for her husband.
Comments
0 comment