Allahabad HC orders release of Kafeel Khan, drops NSA charges

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday ordered the release of doctor Kafeel Khan. Kafeel Khan had been arrested in January for allegedly making a provocative speech on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act issue in December last year.

He was detained under the National Security Act in February. The NSA allows a person to be detained without trial for up to 12 months.

The Yogi Adityanath government had extended the detention of Kafeel Khan under the NSA in August, which would have kept him in jail until November 13. Khan had been jailed at the Mathura jail.

The division bench of Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh revoked the NSA charges against Kafeel Khan. The order came after Kafeel Khan’s mother filed a habeas corpus plea alleging he had been detained illegally.

Kafeel Khan, a paediatrician, had been previously arrested in 2017 for alleged negligence over the deaths of 34 infants at a government hospital in Gorakhpur. The infants, who had been suffering from encephalitis, died due to inadequate oxygen supply.

Kafeel Khan was granted bail by the Allahabad High Court in April 2018 after spending nearly seven months in jail.