India’s Allahabad High Court on September 1, 2020, quashed the detention of Dr Kafeel Khan under the National Security Act and ordered his immediate release.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh, passed the order on a petition filed by Khan’s mother Nuzhat Parveen.
The petition alleged that Khan was granted bail in February by a competent court and he was supposed to be released on bail. However, he was not released for four days and the NSA was subsequently invoked against him. Hence, his detention was illegal, the petition argued.
Khan has been in jail since January after a speech he delivered at the Aligarh Muslim University during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests in December. The speech was deemed “provocative” by the BJP-led government in Uttar Pradesh, which booked Khan under the NSA
Khan hit the headlines after the 2017 tragedy at Gorakhpur’s Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College, in which several kids died due to a lack of oxygen cylinders. Initially, he was hailed as a saviour for the children for arranging emergency oxygen cylinders but later, faced action, along with nine other doctors and staff members of the hospital, all of whom were released on bail later.
Agencies
