Kafeel Khan, the Gorakhpur based doctor, who came out of jail recently after the Allahabad High Court quashed the National Security Act (NSA) slapped on him by the UP government, has written a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) alleging large scale rights 'violations' and 'misuse' of stringent laws to ''suppress the voice of dissent' in India.
Kafeel, who had been arrested in January this year for allegedly delivering an 'inflammatory speech' regarding the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), also accused the UP government of 'torturing' him 'physically and mentally' in jail.
''The government has been misusing stringent laws like NSA and UAPA to suppress the voice of dissent...it will greatly affect the poor and marginalised communities in India,'' he said in his letter.
Kafeel, who spent seven months in Mathura jail in UP, said that he was kept 'without food and water' for several days. ''I was treated in an inhuman manner in jail...I was kept in a jail, where there were more prisoners than its capacity,'' he wrote in the letter.
The Gorakhpur-based doctor, who apprehended that he could be arrested again by the UP government and was shifted to the Congress-ruled state of Rajasthan on the 'advice' of party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, had earlier called UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath an ''obstinate child''.
Kafeel had met Priyanka in Delhi on Sunday, according to the sources in the Congress, triggering speculations that he might soon join the grand old party in the near future.
Khan was also an accused in the case of the death of over 60 children owing to lack of oxygen at Gorakhpur Medical College three years back. He was arrested in that case and spent nine months in jail before being freed on bail.