4 SLAPPED WITH NSA IN INDORE; STRICT ACTION TO BE TAKEN IN UP
UP CM takes serious note of incident, calls those involved enemies of humanity
INDORE/GHAZIABAD: Four men were on Friday detained under the National Security ACT(NSA) for the alleged attack on health workers in Indore even as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said this stringent act will be invoked against quarantined Tablighi Jamaat members accused of misbehaving with the nursing staff at a Ghaziabad hospital.
As sporadic attacks on doctors, social workers and police personnel come to light in the country's battle against the Coronavirus outbreak, the UP authorities also said the NSA will be slapped on people who assault policemen enforcing the 21-day national lockdown which entered the 10th day on Friday. Under the NSA, people can be detained without a charge for up to 12 months if the authorities are satisfied that the person is a threat to the national security or law and order.
President Ram Nath Kovind also voiced concern over the attacks on doctors, health workers and police personnel.
The Union Home Ministry asked the states and union territories to take strict action against those involved in the attacks. The Bollywood fraternity also expressed its solidarity with the healthcare workers who were risking their lives on the front lines of the pandemic, and said the attacks on them were shameful and condemnable .
The Indore district Administration invoked the NSA against four men involved in the alleged attack on health workers in the city.
A five-member team from the state health department had gone to Taatpatti Bakhal area on Wednesday to quarantine relatives and acquaintances of
a COVID-19 patient, when an unruly mob attacked them with stones, injuring two women doctors. The police arrested seven persons for the alleged attack on Thursday and the district administration has slapped the NSA on four of them, the official said.
The police on Friday detained six more men in connection with the incident.
Tablighi Jamaat members quarantined at the MMG district hospital in Ghaziabad allegedly misbehaved with nurses, making lewd remarks and dropping their pants, officials said.
Chief Minister Adityanath took a serious note of the incident, calling those involved enemies of humanity.
They will neither accept the law nor follow arrangements. Whatever they did with women health workers is a heinous crime. The NSA is being invoked against them. We will not let them go scot-free," he said in a statement in Lucknow.
The six Jamaat members were later shifted to a temporary isolation ward set up at a private educational institute following complaints against them.
The Jamaat members were among the thousands who attended a religious congregation at the organisation's New Delhi headquarter, now emerging as a Coronavirus hotspot.
Police said the Jamaat members were booked for allegedly indulging in ugly acts and passing lewd remarks against the women staff members at the hospital.
A case was registered against them at the GT Road Kotwali on receiving a complaint from the chief medical officer.
Police have registered the case under Sections 269, 270, 271, 294 and 354 of the IPC, the SSP said. The sections relate to sexual harassment and acts relating to the spread of disease.
A senior UP Home Department official said NSA will be slapped on people who attack policeman enforcing the lockdown to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the three men who attended religious congregation at Tablighi Jamaat Markaz in Delhi's Nizamuddin have been tested positive in Ghaziabad.
The administration had identified five persons from Masuri area who attended the Tablighi Jamaat and they were put under quarantine at district combined hospital in Sanjay Nagar area of Ghaziabad since March 31.