Gorakhpur hospital tragedy: Allegations against Dr Kafeel Khan proven false

Agencies
November 27, 2017

Lucknow, Nov 27: Unable to find any evidence, the Gorakhpur police have dropped corruption and private practice charges against Dr Kafeel Ahmed Khan, who was made one of the nine accused in the deaths of children at the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur on August 10 and 11.

After state government’s permission, the Gorakhpur Police filed charge-sheets against remaining two former BRD Medical College Principal Dr Rajiv Mishra and Paediatric Ward Head Dr Kafeel Ahmed Khan in the Gorakhpur Court. Dr Mishra was charged under Sections 120-B, 308, 409 of the IPC and 7/13 Anti-Corruption Act while Dr Khan was charged under Sections 120-B, 308 and 409 of the IPC.

Significantly, the Director General Medical Education K.K. Gupta had filed an FIR against Dr Khan under sections 120-B, 308, 409 of the IPC, Section 7/13 of Anti-Corruption Act, Section 66 of IT Act and Section 15 of the Indian Medical Council Act in the last week of August on the recommendation of the high-level committee headed by the Chief Secretary Rajive Kumar.

The Investigative officer Abhishek Singh said that they could not find any material and substantive evidence during the course of investigation against Dr Khan to prove that he was involved in corruption, indulged in private practice or violated any provisions of the IT Act.

“Since no evidence was found against Dr Khan on these counts, we had dropped these charges against him” said Singh. The investigative officers have submitted statements from 93 witnesses and documentary proof against Dr Mishra but could not find any evidence to prove corruption and private practice charges against him.

“Dr Khan was made the scapegoat in the case. An FIR was filed on flimsy grounds to accuse him of private practice, but the police could not find any evidence to prove the charge. This clearly suggest that he is innocent and framed in the case as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath got annoyed with him because the media made him a saviour,” rued a close relative of Dr Khan.

Earlier, the Gorakhpur Police had filed chargesheets against Dr Purnima Shukla, former Anaesthesia Department Head Dr Satish Kumar, ex Chief Pharmacist Gajanan Jaiswal, Accounts departments clerks Sudhir Pandey, Udai Sharma, Sanjay Tripathi and owner of Pushpa Sales Pvt Lt Manish Bhandari. The police were awaiting government nod to file chargesheets against Dr Mishra and Dr Khan.

Meanwhile, FIRs are also likely to be filed against another former Principal of the BRD Medical College DR K.P. Kushwaha and four others in connection with executing contract with oxygen supplier Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd. During the course of investigation it was found that Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd was not manufacturing oxygen but despite that it was engaged to supply oxygen on higher price resulting in losses to state exchequer and violation of tendering process.

“Instead of executing the contract with Innox, the company which was producing oxygen, Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd was given the oxygen supply contract. This raises doubts on role of five members of the committee which executed the contract,” the investigative officer told the court.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 3,2020

Washington, Jan 3: US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iran Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, who died in Baghdad "in a decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad," the Pentagon said Thursday.

"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more," the Department of Defense said.

Following Soleimani's death, Trump tweeted an image of the US flag without any further explanation.

"US' act of international terrorism, assassinating General Soleimani—the most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah,Al Qaeda, is extremely dangerous & foolish escalation. US bears responsibility for all consequences of rogue adventurism." said Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
April 10,2020

New Delhi, Apr 10: With 896 COVID-19 cases reported in the country in the last 24 hours, India's total number of coronavirus positive cases rose to 6,761 on Friday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of all these cases, 6039 are active cases, 516 have been cured/discharged/ migrated, and 206 deaths have been reported so far.

The country witnessed the highest one day increase with 896 cases.

37 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra with 1364 cases is the worst affected state followed by the Union Territory of Delhi with 898 cases and Tamil Nadu with 834 cases.

The country is under a 21-day lockdown until April 14 which was imposed to curb the spread of the virus.

States like Odisha and Punjab have extended the lockdown till April 30.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
coastaldigest.com news network
May 6,2020

New Delhi, May 6: The government on Wednesday said no data or security breach has been identified in Aarogya Setu after an ethical hacker raised concerns about a potential security issue in the app.

The app is the government's mobile application for contact tracing and disseminating medical advisories to users in order to contain the spread of coronavirus.

On Tuesday, a French hacker and cyber security expert Elliot Alderson had claimed that "a security issue has been found" in the app and that "privacy of 90 million Indians is at stake".

Dismissing the claims, the government said "no personal information of any user has been proven to be at risk by this ethical hacker".

"We are continuously testing and upgrading our systems. Team Aarogya Setu assures everyone that no data or security breach has been identified," the government said through the app’s Twitter handle.

The tweet gave point-by-point clarification on the red flags raised by the hacker.

"We discussed with the hacker and were made aware of the following... the app fetches user location on a few occasions," it said, but added that this was by design and is clearly detailed in the privacy policy.

The app fetches users’ location and stores on the server in a secure, encrypted, anonymised manner - at the time of registration, at the time of self assessment, when users submit their contact tracing data voluntary through the app or when it fetches the contact tracing data of users after they have turned COVID-19 positive, it said.

On another issue that users can get COVID-19 stats displayed on the home screen by changing the radius and latitude-longitude using a script, Aarogya Setu said that all this information is already public for all locations and hence does not compromise on any personal or sensitive data.

"We thank the ethical hacker on engaging with us. We encourage any users who identify a vulnerability to inform us immediately...," it said.

Responding to Aarogya Setu's clarification, Alderson tweeted, "I will come back to you tomorrow".

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.