Manithaneya Makkal Katchi president M.H. Jawahirullah said here on Sunday that actor Rajinikanth would perhaps have not fallen at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s feet if he had read Dr. Kafeel Khan’s book, The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy: A Doctor’s Memoir of a Deadly Hospital Crisis.
It deals with the death of 63 children and 18 adults at Baba Raghav Das Medical College’s Nehru Hospital at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh after the hospital ran out of oxygen supply, and the doctor’s experiences of taking on the Chief Minister and eventually getting jailed.
At the launch of the book, translated into Tamil, Mr. Jawahirullah said: “Rajinikanth said he fell at his [Mr. Adityanath’s] feet because he was a yogi. But, had he read Dr. Kafeel Khan’s book, I doubt he would have fallen at his feet.” He said that the BJP partymen who say they are incorruptible should be exposed. “Whether it is [Prime Minister] Modi or Yogi, we should expose to the people that both are corrupt,” he said.
Mr. Jawahirullah said the book explained how badly run the government medical college and hospital in Gorakhpur was. It falls under the Gorakhpur parliamentary constituency, where Mr. Adityanath won five times consecutively.
Senior CPI(M) leader G. Ramakrishnan said Dr. Khan went to jail as a doctor and came out as a doctor and a writer.
In his address, Dr. Khan said only two faces come to people’s mind when they hear about the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy in 2017. “Everyone thinks about Mr. Adityanath and Dr. Khan, but nobody talks about the 63 children and 18 adults who died. I am sorry that we could not save them. Those families are still waiting for justice. Nobody talks about the children because they were all poor,” he said.
He said no publishing house was ready to publish the book. “As a doctor, before the tragedy, I was living in a different world. My father was an engineer and my mother came from a Zamindar family. While in jail, I realised that even after doing good work, [getting a] higher education and hailing from a good family, I could be penalised. As an Indian citizen, I decided to speak out against injustice. Life has taught me so many lessons. When I came out of prison, I started getting invitations to speak. Our health system was already in a shambles. The second wave of COVID-19 exposed it,” he said.
Dr. Khan said he would fight for healthcare as a fundamental right.
Justice D. Hariparanthaman, former Madras High Court judge, took part.
