Kafeel Khan arrested at Mumbai airport for instigating students in Aligarh last month

Earlier on Wednesday, Dr. Khan had addressed a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) in Bihar.

Khan was taken into custody after his flight landed in Mumbai and then taken to Sahar police station.

Suspended lecturer Dr. Kafeel Khan was arrested at the Mumbai airport late on Wednesday night by the Uttar Pradesh Police’s Special Task Force over a month after allegedly making instigating remarks at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

Earlier on Wednesday, Dr. Khan had addressed a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) in Bihar. He was scheduled to attend a protest in Mumbai Central, where local women have staged a sit-in, at 11 am on Thursday and had flown into the city on Wednesday. However, he was taken into custody after his flight landed in Mumbai and then taken to Sahar police station.

Tweet lands doc in police net at airport

Dr Kafeel had boarded the Mumbai-bound flight from Patna. Last month, an FIR was lodged against him in Aligarh under Section 153-A (promoting enmity between different religious groups) after his address at AMU, and police finally caught up with him after stumbling upon his tweet on an anti-CAA meeting in Mumbai, IG, STF, Amitabh Yash said.

Police sources said the STF will produce the doctor before a Mumbai court on Thursday and seek transit remand. “He will be brought to Uttar Pradesh and handed over to Aligarh police,” a senior officer said.

Dr Kafeel grabbed headlines in 2017 when he figured as one of the nine accused in a case involving the deaths of several children due to alleged disruption in supply of oxygen at the BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur. He was arrested by UP police in September 2017. Later, he was released on bail only to be arrested in 2018 in another nineyear-old case.

A senior police official said that the STF would take Dr. Khan back to UP on Thursday.

An FIR was registered at Civil Lines police station in Aligarh on December 13, 2019, a day after Dr. Khan had spoken at a protest rally in AMU. In its FIR, the UP Police accused Dr. Khan of sowing seeds of discord and disharmony towards other religious communities among 600 Muslim students he addressed at the University’s Bab-e-Syed Gate at 6.30 pm on December 12.

The police, which recorded the speech, also accused Dr. Khan of making disparaging remarks towards the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and of exhorting students to fight against the central’s government’s citizenship legislation and of attempting to stoke communal tensions.

Dr. Khan was suspended from Gorakhpur’s Baba Raghav Das Medical College in 2017 after a number of infants affected with Encephalitis died following the disconnection of the hospital’s oxygen supply over non-payment of dues. He was also arrested for alleged dereliction of his duties in the Encephalitis ward and for running a 

Dr Kafeel Khan (centre) after his arrest at the Mumbai airport