NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday summoned senior cardiologist Dr Upendra Kaul for questioning in a 2017 terror funding case for his alleged links with Kashmiri separatist leader and his patient Yasin Malik.
It, however, clarified that he was summoned as a witness. Kaul was summoned under Section 160 CrPC — police officer’s power to require the attendance of witnesses — read with 43F of UAPA (obligation to furnish information), it said.
Incidentally, Kaul, the chairperson and managing director of Batra Hospital in Delhi, had recently appeared on a panel discussion on an English news channel on Kashmir issue.
Soon after appearing before the NIA, he told this newspaper, “It (summoning) was a mistake. It was nothing.” Sources said that Kaul’s summoning was over confusion over blood test results of the separatist leader.
“In one of the messages, he might have sent me a report, or something, in which he wrote INR 2.78. But that unfortunately was misread as Indian National Rupees 2.78 million or whatever. So when they asked me, I just laughed and I said this is not Indian National Rupee, this is Internationalized Normalised Ratio 2.78 — a normal ratio. And that was basically the end of it,” Kaul told a news channel in the evening.
Kaul met malik in 1996
Kaul told the news channel that Malik was first brought to him in 1996 by the GoI through then Intelligence Bureau chief AS Dulat.
“A doctor is not supposed to differentiate between patients be it criminals or anybody. As doctors, we cannot treat patients differently,” he said.