A hospital in Uttar Pradesh has had its licence cancelled after relatives of a toddler and some purported Hindutva outfits protested against the circumcision of the child who they claimed was admitted for a lisp-related surgery on his tongue.

However, Dr M. Khan, owner of Dr M Khan Hospital in Bareilly, told reporters on Monday: “The parents of the child had approached us because the child had frequent urinal infection as a result of enlarged skin over the penis. We did what was written on the prescription of the child. The operation was done exactly for what he was admitted here. We don’t know anything else.”

Dr Vinod Pagrani, district president of the Indian Medical Association, said: “I saw the prescription of the child in which urinal infection and operation are mentioned. There must be some communication gap between the hospital staff and the parents of the child. We are conducting a separate probe."

The child’s father, a Hindu, alleged that he had taken his son to the hospital located on Stadium Road in Bareilly on Friday.

“My two-and-a-half-year-old son used to speak with a lisp. Recently, we realised that the middle part of his tongue was slightly attached to the floor of his mouth. The doctors at Dr M Khan Hospital recommended an operation to detach the tongue. They made us sign a paper on which something was written in English, which I didn’t understand. We noticed that when they brought my son back to the ward from the operation theatre that while no operation was done on his tongue, he was circumcised," the father told reporters on Monday.

As some Hindutva organisations came to know about the allegation on Saturday, they organised a protest at the gate of the hospital. The outfits raised the issue with deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak, who asked Balbir Singh, the chief medical officer (CMO) of Bareilly, to conduct an inquiry.

“We constituted a panel of four doctors, which talked to the doctors of the hospital and the child’s parents and found substance in the allegation," Singh told reporters.

“We have cancelled the licence of the hospital and sealed it with the help of local administration," the CMO added.

Pathak, the deputy CM, said: “The hospital has been sealed and its licence was cancelled after a proper inquiry. Further action will soon be initiated against the hospital management.”

However, an employee of the hospital who did not want to be named, said: “The local administration took action against us unwillingly because they knew that the Hindutva groups had influenced the parents of the child to level false allegations against us. An impartial inquiry will make everything clear."