Indian doctor who spent 500 days in jail over children’s deaths fights against dismissal

Kafeel Khan, a paediatrician from Uttar Pradesh who has been in and out of jail for four years, tells Sravasti Dasgupta the government is trying to make him the scapegoat of a major national tragedy

Dr Kafeel Khan says he has been targeted by the state administration for asking questions about the 2017 hospital tragedy (Supplied/Dr Kafeel Khan)

On the night of 10 August 2017, Kafeel Khan, a paediatrician in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), was playing with his then 11-month-old daughter when he received a message on a WhatsApp group that liquid oxygen had run out at his hospital.

Over the course of the next two days, horror unfolded at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College and Hospital in Gorakhpur city as 63 children in the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) ward died due to an alleged lack of oxygen.

Some reports said the hospital ran out of stock that day after the supplier cut off oxygen due to unpaid bills. But the state government that ran the hospital has denied the deaths were due to a lack of oxygen, and claimed all bills were paid on time.