In an unprecedented move to contain the deadly Chinese Coronavirus from spreading further in his country, the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the police and military to ‘shoot dead’ the lockdown violators.
In a televised address to his citizens, Rodrigo Duterte said: “It is getting worse. So once again I’m telling you the seriousness of the problem and that you must listen. My orders to the police and military…if there is trouble and there’s an occasion that they fight back and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead…Is that understood? Dead. Instead of causing trouble, I will bury you”, Duterte was quoted as saying.
The President stressed that physical abuse and discrimination against medical workers in the country was a grave crime that would not be tolerated.
He furthered that it was vital everyone cooperates and follows home quarantine measures, as authorities try to slow the contagion and spare the country’s fragile health system for being overwhelmed.
While many activists criticised Duterte over his fierce rhetoric and accuse him of inciting violence and vigilantism, his office came to his defence calling it a hyperbole. They said that the President’s intention was to stress on people not violating the lockdown.
The Philippines on March 31 (Tuesday) reported 538 new virus cases – the highest daily jump in the number of infections. As on April 3, 13:00 pm, Philippines recorded 2,633 positive Covid-19 cases and 107 deaths.
The passports of 211 foreign nationals, out of 287, who had attended the religious congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat at Nizamuddin Markaz between March 13 and March 15 have been seized by law enforcement authorities. These foreigners have been hiding in different mosques in the State of Uttar Pradesh. A total of 34 First Information Reports (FIRs) have been registered against them.
Charges have also been pressed against 450 people under Epidemic Diseases Act in Meerut and the adjoining areas. A total of 2,058 members of Tablighi Jamaat have been apprehended from Bijnor, Saharanpur, Shamli, Muzzaffarnagar, Baghpat, and Bulandshahr.
Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Avnish Kumar Awasthi said that the visas of people coming from abroad are constantly being reviewed. He has also urged the people involved with the Tablighi Jamaat should inform themselves to avoid corona. He has also sought help from the common people to report to the police on receiving any information about them.
A report has been lodged against 10 people including nine citizens of Thailand in Prayagraj at Kareli police station in the city late Thursday. A lawsuit has also been instituted against Maulana of the mosque on charges of providing asylum. SP City Brijesh Srivastava has said that his passport will also be confiscated.
The Uttar Pradesh police have registered an FIR against six Muslims associated with controversial Tablighi Jamaat for walking around the ward without their trousers on and making lewd gestures towards the nurses during their quarantine at MMG District Hospital in Ghaziabad. This incident of Tablighi Jamaat members misbehaving came after they were quarantined.
The Chief Medical Officer of the District MMG Hospital in Ghaziabad had written a letter to the Ghaziabad police informing about the criminal behaviour of the Jamaatis. The CMO had written that the members of the Tablighi Jamaat who as kept at the isolation ward of the hospital have been roaming in their wards naked with their pants. The letter states that obscene comments and songs are being heard from the ward, and inmates are asking for beedi-cigarette from the staff of the hospital. The CMO also writes that those people are also making lewd gestures towards female employees of the hospital.
Following the increased mob attacks against frontline healthcare workers and policemen engaged in fight against the deadly Coronavirus, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to invoke National Security Act (NSA) against those who attack police personnel anywhere in the state during the nation-wide coronavirus lockdown, reports ANI.
According to the reports, the Yogi Adityanath-led government has issued orders that strict action will be taken under the NSA against mobs who have been indulging in attacks against police, health-workers who have been on the frontline to limit the spread of the Chinese pandemic COVID-19.
Uttar Pradesh Government has issued orders that strict action will be taken under the National Security Act (NSA) against those who attack police personnel anywhere in the state during #CoronavirusLockdown.
At a time when the authorities across the country are scrambling to identify the symptomatic patients, especially the ones who had attended the Tablighi Jammat in mid-March, there have been attacks on policemen by mobs in various place across the country.
Last week, in a similar act, a Muslim mob had not only assembled at a local mosque in Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh but also attacked the policemen for asking to avoid mass prayers (namaz) in the view of nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Similarly, six Muslims associated with controversial Tablighi Jamaat had indulged in thedeplorable act after they had walked around the ward without their trousers on and making lewd gestures towards the nurses during their quarantine at MMG District Hospital in the city. An FIR has also been registered against these people for misbehaving with nurses and hospital staff.
The number of COVID-19 cases has risen to 126 in Uttar Pradesh. Of these 126 cases, 17 have been fully cured and discharged while two have died – one each in Meerut and Basti.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the PM CARES Fund to fight the Wuhan Coronavirus, a lot has been discussed about the similarities and differences between PM CARES Fund and PMNRF. The Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) was established in the year 1948. Initially, the purpose of the fund was to provide assistance to displaced people from Pakistan during and right after the partition of India. The resources of the PMNRF are now utilized primarily to render immediate relief to families of those killed in natural calamities like floods, cyclones and earthquakes, etc. and to the victims of the major accidents and riots. Assistance from PMNRF is also rendered, to partially defray the expenses for medical treatment like heart surgeries, kidney transplantation, cancer treatment and acid attack etc. The fund consists entirely of public contributions and does not get any budgetary support. The corpus of the fund is invested in various forms with scheduled commercial banks and other agencies. Disbursements are made with the approval of the Prime Minister.
It is pertinent to note that the PMNRF is not constituted by the parliament.
In the wake of the Partition of India, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said that while the government of India is utilising its funds to ensure that the displaced can re-settle and re-start their lives, it was not enough and helping those displaced needed a collective effort of the nation. To that end, a national fund was set up that could be used to help people suffering from any disaster but especially, was to be used to help the refugees from Pakistan post-partition.
It is thus that PMNRF was constituted day the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. However, what is little known is that when it was constituted, the managing committee had included the President of the Congress party specifically.
When the Fund was constituent, the following people were included in the managing committee of the PMNRF.
i) The Prime Minister. ii) The President of the India National Congress party. iii) The Deputy Prime Minister. iv) The Finance Minister. v) A representative of Tata Trustees. vi) A representative of Industry & Commerce to be chosen by FICCI.
1948 Notification announcing formation of PMNRF by PM Jawaharlal Nehru
In the notification, it was said that more members would be added to the committee later on.
In fact, it was only sometime in the year 1985, the then Managing Committee of the Fund entrusted the entire management of the said fund to the Prime Minister. The PM was conferred with sole discretion to appoint a “Secretary of the fund” on his behalf, upon whom amongst other things, the authority to operate the bank accounts of the fund was also delegated. It is pertinent to note that this decision was taken when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was in-charge of the fund.
Interestingly, the PMNRF is far less transparent than the PM CARES since after PMNRF was deemed a trust, it has functioned without a trust deed. Essentially, giving unbridled power to the Prime Minister with zero accountability. Till date, nobody knows what the guidelines that govern the PMNRF are.
In the face of the Wuhan Coronavirus, Prime Minister Modi launched PM CARES Fund where he invited public contribution to fight the pandemic. The PM CARES Fund is an emergency fund that was set up to provide relief to those affected by the Wuhan Coronavirus. The PM CARES, or the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund has been set up as a public charitable trust. The Prime Minister is the chairman of this trust and its members include Defence Minister, Home Minister And Finance Minister.
As soon as it was launched, the fund received a thumping reception with thousands of people donating to it, including industrialists, Bollywood stars and the average folk. However, one question that was repeatedly raised as to why a PM CARES Fund was created instead of simply using the PMNRF or even renaming the PMNRF to PM CARES.
Business Standard noted in an article that PM CARES Fund is far more democratic than the PMNRF.
It says:
Under PMNRF, the criterion for disbursement of money and selection of beneficiaries is purely at the ‘discretion of the PM and in accordance with the PM’s directions.’ Modi’s PM CARES now delegates that power of deliberation and decision making to three other ministers of the government, who handle some of the most crucial portfolios. Apart from Modi who will chair the trust, it also has his top three ministers – Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as members. As chairman of the PM CARES trust, Modi still has the responsibility of sanctioning and approving his ministers’ recommendations; but unlike PMNRF he is not the proverbial ‘judge, jury and executioner.’ By the looks of it, Modi seems to have diluted the powers of his own office over the crucial fund with the creation of PM CARES.
The report also summarised the differences between the PM CARES Fund and the PMNRF.
Difference between PM CARES Fund and PMNRF (By Business Standard)
It thus suffices to say that the PM CARES Fund is far more adequate and transparent than the PMNRF is even though the latter has come to the rescue of several citizens as well.
It is also now reported that the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund), which is a dedicated national fund with the primary objective of dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, will have up to 13 eminent experts to undertake relief or assistance of any kind relating to a public health emergency including the creation and up-gradation of healthcare facilities. Most importantly, the eminent experts will be working pro bono.
There is also a provision to set up an advisory board of not more than 10 persons — selected by the trustees from among the medical practitioners, healthcare professionals, academicians, economists and lawyers.
“The responsibility of the trustees in PM-CARES has been defined, unlike in the Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF). The latter has no provision of an advisory board. PMNRF has the PM, deputy PM, finance minister, Congress president and a representative of the Tata Trust and industry representative chosen by FICCI, as members of the trust,” a senior official speaking to Economic Times revealed.
A senior BJP functionary said Congress was objecting to PM-CARES because the Congress president had not found a place in it unlike in the PMNRF. “The idea is not to make the PM-CARES fund political in any sense. There is no BJP representation on the PM-CARES fund – people will be on the trust based on their positions in government,” the functionary said.
“PM-CARES’s objectives include undertaking and supporting relief or assistance of any kind relating to a public health emergency or any other kind of emergency, calamity or distress either man-made or natural, including the creation or up-gradation of healthcare or pharmaceutical facilities, other necessary infrastructure, funding relevant research or any other type of support.”
A whopping 60% (295 persons) out of the new 485 confirmed positive cases of Wuhan Coronavirus detected within a single day on Thursday had attended the Nizamuddin Markaz organised by the Tablighi Jamaat, reportedThe Times of India. The event was held between March 13 and March 15 and saw a footfall of around 3400 members. Even after the event, thousands of Jamaat members had continued to gather in the Nizamuddin Markaz Mosque in Delhi.
So far more than 2500 people have been infected in India while 70 patients have lost their lives. As of Thursday, Delhi reported 141 cases while Maharashtra reported 88 new cases most of them Jammat members. 129 of the 141 confirmed cases in Delhi are Jamaat members.
#Covid19 in India: Nearly 65% of 544 new all-India cases linked to #TablighiJamaat’s event in city
The massive jump of cases in India is solely due to the Tablighi Jamaat members who had gathered in the Nizamuddin mosque despite government orders against mass-gatherings. The Jamaat members taking buses and trains to their respective localities all over India has resulted in a massive nation-wide spread within a span of few days. As per government reports, over 9000 Tablighi Jamaat attendees and their primary contacts have so far been quarantined.
North-Eastern state Assam, which had so far been untouched by the coronavirus, saw 16 positive cases in a single day, all of them were Tablighi Jamaat returnees. Tablighi members have also taken the coronavirus as far as Andaman Nicobar Islands and Arunachal Pradesh.
The Uttar Pradesh police have registered an FIR against six Tablighi Jamaat members for walking around the ward without their trousers on and making lewd gestures towards the nurses during their quarantine at MMG District Hospital in Ghaziabad. This incident of Tablighi Jamaat members misbehaving came after they were quarantined. The Chief Medical Officer of the hospital had earlier written a letter to the cops, informing about the criminal behaviour of the Jamaatis.
In what could be termed as a massive effort undertaken by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in coordination with states, until now, as many as 9000 Tablighi Jamaat workers and their primary contacts have been traced and placed in quarantine across the country in view of the coronavirus infection. Out of these 9000 people, 1306 are foreign nationals and the rest are Indians.
The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund), which is a dedicated national fund with the primary objective of dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, will have up to 13 eminent experts to undertake relief or assistance of any kind relating to a public health emergency including the creation and up-gradation of healthcare facilities. Most importantly, the eminent experts will be working pro bono, reports Economic Times.
The PM-CARES will be headed by the prime minister, who will be the chairperson of the Trust. He will have the power to nominate three people to the board of trustees who shall be eminent persons in the field of research, health, science, social work, law, public administration and philanthropy.
The board of trustees also include the Defence Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister in an ex-officio capacity.
Reportedly, there is also a provision to set up an advisory board of not more than 10 persons — selected by the trustees from among the medical practitioners, healthcare professionals, academicians, economists and lawyers.
“The responsibility of the trustees in PM-CARES has been defined, unlike in the Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF). The latter has no provision of an advisory board. PMNRF has the PM, deputy PM, finance minister, Congress president and a representative of the Tata Trust and industry representative chosen by FICCI, as members of the trust,” a senior official speaking to Economic Times revealed.
A senior BJP functionary said Congress was objecting to PM-CARES because the Congress president had not found a place in it unlike in the PMNRF. “The idea is not to make the PM-CARES fund political in any sense. There is no BJP representation on the PM-CARES fund – people will be on the trust based on their positions in government,” the functionary said.
“PM-CARES’s objectives include undertaking and supporting relief or assistance of any kind relating to a public health emergency or any other kind of emergency, calamity or distress either man-made or natural, including the creation or up-gradation of healthcare or pharmaceutical facilities, other necessary infrastructure, funding relevant research or any other type of support.”
PM-CARES will also render financial assistance, provide grants of payments of money or take any such other steps deemed necessary by the Board of Trustees to the affected population. Both PM-CARES and PMNRF offer 100% income-tax exemption on donations and will accept them from individuals and organisations abroad too, the ET report says.
The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) was created on 28 March 2020 following the Chinese COVID-19 pandemic in India. The fund will be used for combating, containment and relief efforts against the coronavirus outbreak and similar pandemic like situations in the future.
On Wednesday, authorities in the Saptari district of Nepal had traced and quarantined 18 persons at Lakshmi Naryan Secondary School. They had attended the religious congregation organised by the Tablighi Jamaat at Nizamuddin Markaz.
It has recently emerged as the Coronavirus hotspot with several of the attendees being tested positive for the Wuhan Coronavirus also known as COVID-19.
18 Nepali Muslims, who recently returned from India after participating in a #TablighiJamaat congregation in #Nizamuddin area in New Delhi, have been identified and kept in a quarantine facility in southern Nepal’s Saptari district, authorities said. https://t.co/s3ymWdEj5Z
Moreover, about 400 Indian citizens who wanted to return to India, amidst the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak, are stranded in the Birgunj area in Parsa owing to the closure of the India-Nepal border. They have been kept at an education faculty building and have been provided with food by the Nepal Police.
In another incident, 13 Indonesians who had arrived in Kathmandu in Nepal from Saptari were sent to quarantine at Godavari Village Resort. They were initially taken to a mosque in Imadole by the cops but soon had to be shifted to the resort that can accommodate 50 people, owing to limited facilities.
The Himalayan nation has reported only 5 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far, but with the Tablighi Jamaat super-spread, Nepal is expected to be hit hard too. The nation had sealed the borders with India and China back on March 23 and had placed the country under a partial lockdown.
Earlier, a shocking audio clip from the Nizamuddin Markaz has emerged where the Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad can be heard mocking the government’s call to close mosques and other religious places in a bid to contain the spread of Chinese coronavirus. The audio was recorded at the Nizamuddin Markaz on 23 March 2020, one day after the Janta Curfew was observed and a day before the country-wide lockdown was announced.
It is notable here that Tablighi Jamaat’s congregations had previously been found to be the Coronavirus super spreader in Malaysia and Pakistan too. Over 16,000 Jamaat members had congregated in Malaysia while over 250,000 had gathered near Lahore in March, spreading the virus as far as Gaza when the infected persons dispersed and travelled.
In what could be termed as a massive effort undertaken by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in coordination with states, until now, as many as 9000 Tablighi Jamaat workers and their primary contacts have been traced and placed in quarantine across the country in view of the coronavirus infection. Out of these 9000 people, 1306 are foreign nationals and the rest are Indians.
In a shocking incident, a man was assaulted by a mob in Maharashtra’s Solapur district for informing local authorities about those who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi.
According to the reports, the 56-year-old man had informed the village ‘Gramsevak’ in Pimpri that about seven locals had attended the Tablighi meet in Delhi’s Nizamuddin and had recently returned to the village. He had insisted that they should be tested for coronavirus.
Following this, Tablighi Jamaat attendees in the village were angered by this disclosure of information and attacked the man on Tuesday.
A case has been registered at the Vairag police station in connection with the assault, police said.
Solapur SP Manoj Patil, however, added that the coronavirus test reports of the seven persons who attended the Tablighi meet in Delhi have come out negative. “We made all the seven persons undergo coronavirus test. All of them have tested negative for coronavirus,” the IPS officer said.
The large-scale religious gathering organised by the Tablighi Jamaat in the National capital in March has been traced to hundreds of positive cases all across India. Authorities have been appealing the attendees to come forward and declare themselves to get tested.
At a time when the authorities across the country are scrambling to identify the Markaz attendees who participated in the congregation in Nizamuddin in mid-March, they have been several instances of resistance and even assault from many places. A series of incidents have already been reported in various parts of the country where healthcare personnel and police teams have been attacked by mobs for carrying out their duty.
In Indore, a medical team was attacked by a mob in Tatpatti Bakhal for visiting the locality to check on a patient with suspected coronavirus symptoms. Yesterday in Bengaluru, a nurse and ASHA workers were also attacked by the residents of Sadiq layout for trying to collect health details and trace symptomatic persons.
Similarly, a team of health officials in Ahmednagar were beaten up by the contacts of Markas attendees on the suspicion that they are collecting information for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), NPR and NPR.
Prime Minister Modi in his address to the nation through a video message today, announced that on 5th April, the nation has to come together to show their grit and collective strength. PM Modi, asking for 9 minutes on 5th April (Sunday) at 9 PM, urged people to switch off all the lights of the house and stand in the balcony after lighting a lamp, switching on the flashlight of their mobile phone or holding a torch.
Prime Minister Modi essentially said that this collective expression of purpose and togetherness would help the nation get through this time of crisis. He further requested that during this expression of purpose, nobody should congregate to express their feelings. This was to be done maintaining social distancing and under no circumstances should this rule be broken.
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi said that the lockdown that he had imposed to arrest the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus has entered its 9th day today. He hailed the citizens for following the rules and even people who had served the people of India. The PM said that the manner in which the country came together to thank Covornavirus Warriors on 22nd March by banging plates and clapping has become an example for several countries around the world. In these trying times, he said that this gesture has inspired people to see the collective sentiment of a nation and that any nation can come together to fight the pandemic.
Further, PM Modi said that this collective sentiment is evident through the lockdown that was imposed. Today, when crores of people are sitting at home anyone might feel what he would do sitting alone at home and several people must be wondering how they would fight this pandemic on their own. Addressing concerns about how many days the lockdown would continue, Prime Minister Modi asked people not to fear and to know that nobody is alone in this fight and the entire nation is in this fight together.
In India, it is believed that people, the citizens of India are an image of God, PM Modi said. In this fight, the collective might of the people should be expressed from time to time so people get inspired and get the strength to fight this war against the Wuhan Coronavirus. Prime Minister Modi said that the poor people, who are most effective by the Wuhan Coronavirus, should be helped to move towards the light admits the darkness thrusted upon the nation due to the pandemic.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted that he will be sharing a video message with the citizens on Friday, the 3rd of April. Many believed that this video message would be on the Wuhan Coronavirus and the spread of the same in India.
At 9 AM tomorrow morning, I’ll share a small video message with my fellow Indians.
कल सुबह 9 बजे देशवासियों के साथ मैं एक वीडियो संदेश साझा करूंगा।
Prime Minister Modi had announced that India would be on lockdown for 21-days to arrest the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus. Later, in a gesture of humility, during ‘Mann ki Baat’ where the PM addresses the nation every week, PM Modi had apologised to the nation saying that he knows he has taken a harsh step but it was a necessary one to ensure that the pandemic doesn’t spread.
The Uttar Pradesh police have registered an FIR against six Muslims associated with controversial Tablighi Jamaat for walking around the ward without their trousers on and making lewd gestures towards the nurses during their quarantine at MMG District Hospital in the city, reports ANI. This incident of Tablighi Jamaat members misbehaving came after they were quarantined.
Reportedly, the members of Tablighi Jamaat were found intentionally roaming naked in their ward and making lewd gestures for female staff at a Ghaziabad Hospital. Following this incident, an FIR has been registered against persons from Tablighi Jamat by the city police based on Chief Medical officer’s complaint.
The Chief Medical Officer of the District MMG Hospital in Ghaziabad had written a letter to the Ghaziabad police informing about the criminal behaviour of the Jamaatis. The CMO had written that the members of the Tablighi Jamaat who as kept at the isolation ward of the hospital have been roaming in their wards naked with their pants. The letter states that obscene comments and songs are being heard from the ward, and inmates are asking for beedi-cigarette from the staff of the hospital. The CMO also writes that those people are also making lewd gestures towards female employees of the hospital.
“The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the MMG Hospital in Ghaziabad had complained that six of the admitted patients in the isolation ward were misbehaving with the nurses and not cooperating with the hospital staff,” Manish Mishra, SP City, Ghaziabad.
The patients have been shifted to Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology and kept under quarantine.
The senior police officer also added that the accusations have been found relevant and a case has been registered under IPC Section 294, 354, 269 and 270 against the six accused persons. “It has been directed to ensure fair investigation in the matter,” SSP added.
There seems to be no end to anti-social behaviour of attendees of Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi. After spreading the deadly Chinese coronavirus across the country, the Islamists had attacked medical teams who were searching for Tablighi members for who had attended the religious congregation to check them for possible infection. Some of them had even spit on them to spread the contagious disease.
The Tablighi Jamaat has turned out to be the epicentre of the Chinese coronavirus spread in the country. Muslim clerics of Tablighi Jamaat organised a congregation in violation of the government’s lockdown orders, providing a conducive environment for the novel coronavirus to proliferate.
As per conservative estimates, the congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat was attended by more than 2000 people, both from various parts of the country as well as from abroad. Several people who attended the congregation had turned positive for COVID-19, and few of them have died.
