IS suspect arrested in Gujarat: Hospital says no ties with Ahmed Patel

The then President Pranab Mukherjee at the inauguration of Sardar Patel Hospital and Heart Institute

A day after Chief Minister Vijay Rupani claimed that Congress MP Ahmed Patel was a trustee of Sardar Patel Hospital and Heart Institute in Ankleshwar, where one of the two arrested IS suspects worked, the hospital on Saturday said that neither Ahmed Patel nor any of his family members were associated with it. The trustees of the hospital said that Patel had only “helped the hospital” in gathering funds.

Trustee Jayesh Patel said, “Neither Ahmed Patel nor any member of his family are associated with this hospital as trustees. We don’t want to give shelter to terrorism. Our hospital management condemns such activities and the accused, if guilty, should be strictly and legally punished. Only, Ahmed Patel is an MP (Rajya Sabha ) and he is the son of this land. He helped the hospital by way of funds, which has benefited people. We should be thankful to him for that.”

Clarifying its stand about the appointment of the accused, Kasim Stimberwala, Jayesh said, “Kasim had given his resignation to the hospital management on October 4, 2017 and stated that he would cease to report to work from October 24 onward. The management had accepted his resignation the same day.

He was on probation period and he was selected on the basis of his previous work experience with hospitals like Wockhardt, Care and others. We don’t know about his suspected activities.” The eight trustees of the hospital are Kamlesh Udani, Chandravadan Joshi, Rajesh Manubarwala, Sujauddin Vazifdar, Jyotibhai Modi, Harish Mehta, Bharat Mehta and Jayesh Patel.