I should be reinstated with due honour: Kafeel Khan
New Delhi, Sep 28: Suspended paediatrician Kafeel Khan, who has been absolved of charges of medical negligence and corruption in connection with the Gorakhpur's BRD hospital tragedy, on Saturday demanded he should be reinstated with due honour.
Addressing mediapersons at the Press Club of India here, he reiterated the Uttar Pradesh government should apologise to the families of the children who died and provide compensation to the kin.
"The departmental inquiry has shown that I did not do any medical negligence or indulge in any corruption... That tag of 'murderer Kafeel' and infamous doctor Kafeel is off my head now," he said.
"I demand that I should be reinstated in my job with due honour and a CBI inquiry should be conducted into the case," he said.
About 30 children died during the night of August 10, 2017 and 34 more over the next few days, officials had said then.
Many of the infants died allegedly because of disruption in oxygen supply on the night of August 10 due to pending payments to the supplier, a charge refuted by the state government.
Khan was accused of negligence and corruption and was suspended and subsequently arrested following the outrage over the deaths at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College. His suspension is yet to be revoked.
An advisor to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, however, said on Friday that the inquiry has not disproved the charge that the doctor also ran a private practice.
"It is not right to say that Dr Kafeel has got a clean chit in the departmental inquiry. He has made a wrongful conclusion of the report," Mrityunjay Kumar had said in a statement.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
