Police forces have been deployed at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain hospital in Delhi after several members of the Tablighi Jamaat who were evacuated from the Nizamuddin Markaz in the last two days threatened doctors and refused to get themselves tested or admitted in the hospital.
News agency ANI quoted the hospital director Kishore Singh saying that the Jamaatis instead of giving into treatment are proving to be a health risk for the doctors and other staff by objecting to getting tested. They had no option but to call in the police.
Yesterday, TV visuals showed the Jamaatis spitting from the buses and at doctors and medical staff at the hospital they were kept. The Tablighi Jamaat members who were shifted to quarantine facilities in Delhi after exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 behaved in an unruly manner with the facility staff and doctors. The occupants made unreasonable demands for food, misbehaved and abused staff members and started spitting all over and on persons working/attending them, including doctors. They also started roaming around the hostel building.
India Legal had yesterday reported how the Jamaatis,many of whom are believed to have been infected by the deadly Coronavirus actually spat at policemen and on the roads when they were being transported in buses to hospitals for treatment and quarantine. The reports said that those sitting inside the buses spat out in what are presumed to be serious attempts to spread the virus as much as possible. . In order to avoid the spread of the virus, the official then ordered the Muslim clerics to shut the bus windows.
The Health Minister of Delhi said that more than more than 1500 people had assembled at the Banglewali Masjid and around 1033 people have been evacuated and 334 have been sent to hospitals and 700 have been sent to quarantine Centres. A nationwide man hunt has been launched by the government to track all the people who have participated in the Markaz Nizamuddin meeting and went back to their native places thereby spreading the contagious diseases amid lockdown.
In doing the obnoxious acts, the clerics and their followers can be prosecuted by the Delhi police which can register criminal cases against individual members of the Jamaat who put the life of the policemen on risk by trying them to infect with corona virus. The legal position on such acts is clear as crystal: Sections 269 of Indian Penal Code provide punishment to a person who unlawfully commits an act which spreads infection of disease dangerous to life with an imprisonment of six months. Similarly, sections 270, 271 of IPC also provides for punishment for malignant act for spread of dangerous disease and disobedience to quarantine rule promulgated by government.
-India Legal Bureau
Pic Credit: UNI