Forgotten Colleague of Kafeel Khan: After 7 Months in Jail, Gorakhpur Doc's Bail Plea to be Heard Today

Gorakhpur: Days after pictures of Dr Kafeel Khan breaking into tears in his mother’s arms moved Twitterati, another son is eagerly waiting to see his father for the past seven months.

A trail court is set to hear the bail plea of his 58-year-old father on Wednesday.

Recalling the fateful day, Tushar Kumar Rain blames himself for the misery of his father, Dr Satish Kumar, who along with Khan, Dr Rajiv Misra and six others were arrested in connection with the death of nearly 70 children due to lack of oxygen at the Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College last August.

Rain narrates that it was his convocation at IIT Mumbai when he pestered his parents to attend the event.

Kumar, who was the head of BRD hospital’s anesthesia department, took leave from the medical college and left for his son’s convocation along with his wife. As soon as the doctor arrived at his son’s college, reports of children’s death due to lack of oxygen started doing the rounds.

Kumar immediately rushed back and resumed work the next day. However, a five-member team headed by district magistrate named the 58-year-old doctor in its report for “not discharging his duties” despite being in-charge for liquid oxygen supply. He was also accused of not maintaining the log book of oxygen cylinders.

Thereafter, police named Kumar along with eight others in its charge-sheet for "negligence and corruption".

Rain says that while Khan has received a lot of support in the case for being made a “scapegoat” in the case, his father and others are not spoken much of in the public.

Former principal of the college Dr Misra and his wife Dr Purnima were also arrested, but their bails rejected by trial courts.

Rain says despite the submission made by the state in court that all the deaths did not occur due to oxygen deprivation but owing to natural causes, his father is still behind bars. The family is now keenly awaiting the court orders.

Kumar’s daughter, Manjari, who visited him in the jail on April 27, said that her father keeps appealing her to do something, and get him out soon.

Waiting for her husband at their house in Gorakhpur’s Shahpur area, the doctor’s wife, Anita, claims that he underwent a major intestinal surgery a few months ago and needed constant medical attention, which was being denied to him in jail.

“I was living alone in the house for some time before my daughters joined me. Pallavi and her elder sister Manjari are helping me cope with this crisis. They go and visit my husband in jail regularly. Dr Kumar has over these last seven months has started suffering from low blood pressure and depression,” Anita says with tears welled up in her eyes.

Kumar has also written to Indian Medical Association to draw their attention of his plight. His wife believes that the eight doctors are being targeted to save the real culprits.

“The state government has confined the innocent in jail, so that the real culprits are not exposed before the public,” she claims.