By Syed Qamar Hasan
It is said the North Sea made the Vikings. The metaphor aptly fits doctor Kafeel Khan, scandalized in the Gorakhpur Hospital tragedy, incarcerated for months on trumped-up charges. Out of the can with a clean chit given by the courts, after nine months of the most inhumane treatment, the slightly built doctor is now steel nerved and iron-willed fighting the very powers that sent him to jail instead of acknowledging and appreciating his presence of mind and commitment to his professional ethics, saving the lives of about 50 children who could have died had he not helped opening up his purse to buy the much-needed supply of oxygen in time.
Like the tough seafaring Viking warriors, who navigated the deadly deep fjords and steep cliffs of the treacherous North Sea with a gay abandon. Doctor Kafeel Khan a pediatrician at the Baba Raghava Das Medical College (BRDM) in Gorakhpur, endured the nine months jail, which he calls the most harrowing experience of his life, designed by the despotic Chief Minister of UP, Ajay Mohan Bisht, Aka, Yogi Adityanath on trumped-up charges, turned this unassuming anonymity, into a celebrity. The humiliating treatment in the jail, instead of taking the mickey out of him, has made him a fighter on course to settle scores with his detractors.
An unfortunate event of the night of August 10th in 2017, and events that followed known to millions by now had catapulted the doctor onto the national and international stage a hapless victim of state terror. Dr. Kafeel who was recently in Hyderabad for the Telangana the 8th state for the launch of his book, ‘The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy’ that gives a graphic account of his plight, now in the bestseller club, recollected with remorse the Sunday morning of August 13th, 2017, when he was summoned to CM Yogi’s office, he quipped to his wife Shabista, ‘Abhi Gaya Abhi Aya’ ( will be back in a jiffy) happily mistaken that I would be honored by the CM, I walked into his chamber only to find a terse and grim-looking CM surrounded by a sullen lot of his administration officials. And when beckoned, “Achha to ‘Tuh’ hai Kafeel,” I realized what was in store for me, a reflex feeling of fear crept raising goose pimples, for I knew what the pronoun Tuh meant in Yogis’ DNA.And rightfully he was whisked away by the police and later charged with several IPC acts and sent to jail.
The 40 or so Kafeel Khan with his trademark Soul Patch, despite the trauma and pain he suffered, shows a lot of youth, life, and romance. He holds an MBBS and MD from the Manipal University, author of a few books on medicine, and is an activist on the move with a mission, when asked why the Soul Patch beard, says he was infatuated with Amir Khans’ role as Aakash in the 2001 movie ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ in which Amir Khan wears the Soul Patch, that became the rage with many youngsters. Kafeel Khans’ wife Shabita is also a dental doctor working at BRDM, he has two children a boy and a girl. What has he planned for his two offspring, his reply is, It is for them to decide. I coaxed him further citing a question I once put to the late Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto the first female head of a Muslim state, who was incarcerated for several months by the military dictator General Zia ul Haq, who had got her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto hanged. Ms. Bhutto, married recently to Asif Ali Zardari said if I beget boys, I would send one to the army and the other to a law school. Perhaps a reflex afterthought at what had happened to her and her father. But Kafeel stuck to his ” let them decide their future.”
| Posted by Sameer Khan | 
