New Delhi, August 31, 2019 (PPI-OT): A top cardiologist was summoned by India’s infamous National Investigation Agency (NIA) for his SMS exchanges with one of his patients and incarcerated Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik, about blood test results.
The NIA questioned Upendra Kaul, a prominent Delhi-based cardiologist and Chairman of the Batra Hospital, for half an hour on Friday. Dr Kaul said that his SMS exchange with Muhammad Yasin Malik drew the attention of investigators and they mistook the blood report value for “hawala money”.
One of the messages said, “Blood Report Value INR 2.78” – INR being Internationalised Normalised Ratio”. Reports say NIA may have interpreted INR as Indian rupees, and so, assumed “Rs 2.78 crores in hawala money”.
“In one of the messages, he (Yasin Malik) might have sent me a report, or something, in which 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 is a normal ratio,” Dr Kaul said in an interview after appearing before the NIA.
The summons has been linked by many to his public criticism of the India’s move to end special status of occupied Kashmir by abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
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