Dr Kafeel Khan to write to CM seeking reinstatement in UP medical services

Uttar Pradesh: Days after a court quashed his detention under the National Security Act, Dr Kafeel Khan on Thursday said he will ask the Uttar Pradesh chief minister to give him back his job in the state medical services. Khan was addressing a press conference in the Rajasthan capital, where he said felt "safe" as it is a Congress-run state – indirectly comparing it with Uttar Pradesh.

He was suspended from Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College after several children died there in 2017, apparently due to the lack of oxygen cylinders at the government hospital. A departmental inquiry later cleared Khan of most of the charges, but he found himself in trouble for an allegedly provocative speech in Aligarh over the amended citizenship law.

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He was detained under the stringent NSA, which the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday ruled was illegal. "As the High Court has quashed the charges under the NSA lodged against me, I would write to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister to reinstate me in the medical service," he told reporters.

"If I am not allowed, I will hold medical camps in flood-affected areas of Assam as an activist," he added. The doctor said he and his family arrived in Jaipur as they felt safe here.

"There is a Congress government in Rajasthan. My family felt that we will be safe here. I wanted to spend some quality time with my family," he said. He said he was falsely implicated by the UP government and sent to jail as he had exposed the system.

"I was leading a simple life. I tried to expose the system as children died at BRD Medical College due to lack of oxygen. This did not go well with our chief minister and a false case was lodged, and I was sent to jail," he claimed. Khan alleged he was tortured and asked "weird questions" after being arrested by the UP special task force in Mumbai over the speech in gave at the Aligarh Muslim University.

"The NSA was imposed on me for three months and was extended for three months. Again, it was extended after three months. I was not given water for 72 hours after being taken into custody," he claimed. "I was physically tortured after the STF arrested me. I was asked weird questions like if have invented any powder to kill people and visited Japan to topple the government," Khan said.

He had been in jail since January after he delivered the speech during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) last December. Ordering his release on Tuesday, the Allahabad High Court said the speech didn't promote hatred or violence and gave a call for national unit.

The bench of Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh said the Aligarh district magistrate, who passed the order for Khan's detention, did a "selective reading" of his speech, "ignoring its true intent." Immediately after his release from Mathura Jail on Tuesday night, Khan told reporters that he was apprehensive that the UP government might frame him in any other case.

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