By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
On Wednesday, Allahabad High Court granted bail to Dr. Kafeel Ahmad Khan, the pediatrician whose name was allegedly involved in the death of infants at Baba Raghav Das Medical College, Gorakhpur in August 2017.
The one-member bench of Justice Yashwant Verma delivered the order on the bail plea of the Kafeel Ahmad Khan. Kafeel was behind the bars since last eight months.
In the aftermath of the deaths in August last year, the Uttar Pradesh government had formed a special task force (STF) which led to the arrests of Dr. Kafeel Ahmed Khan, medical college principal Dr. Rajiv Mishra, 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 in September last year.
The arrest of Kafeel Ahmed Khan was much debated as he was the first one who reached the hospital on the night of August 10 and tried to save lives by managing oxygen cylinders from various sources.
Due to a lack of substantial pieces of evidence, STF dropped private practice and corruption charges from Dr. Khan in November 2017. However, Kafeel Ahmad Khan is still charged under sections 308, 409 and 120B of Indian Penal Code and was still under judicial custody.
The Supreme Court had, however, granted bail to Manish Bhandari, whose firm Pushpa Sales was responsible for supplying oxygen to BRD Medical College on Monday. The bail applications of others are still pending at Allahabad High Court.
Dr. Kafeel Ahmad Khan has pleaded for his innocent on several occasions. During his visit to the hospital for the medical tests last week, Kafeel told media that he was being used as a scapegoat in the case and the death episode was due to administrative negligence.