‘Journalist’ Sagarika Ghose, infamous for her legendary journalism of determining one’s religion by a mere cursory glance at his semen, today made a perverted comparison while defending the superspreader Jamaatis who congregated at Nizamuddin amidst coronavirus lockdown and deliberately attempted to jeopardise public health.
Expressing disapproval of those asking for the arrest of Tablighi Jamaat members who attended the function in Nizamuddin, Ghose tried to draw a reprehensible equivalence by tweeting that people asking the arrest of Tablighi Jamaat should also ask for the arrest of Kanika Kapoor, her VIP hosts, all Madhya Pradesh MLAs holding meetings and all the 700 MPs of both the houses for attending parliament.
Those calling for arrest of #TablighiJamat must also call for the arrest of Kanika Kapoor, her VIP hosts, all Madhya Pradesh MLAs holding meetings when #COVID outbreak reported. Also of 700 MPs of both houses who attended Parl when there shd’ve been social distancing #Lockdown21
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) March 31, 2020
It is imperative to note here that in 2002 when Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, often called the Missile Man for his immense contribution in aerospace, Sagarika Ghose had a total meltdown and referred to him as ‘Bomb Daddy’ in an opinion piece.
Members of Tablighi Jamaat defied lockdown restrictions and congregated in Nizamuddin. At least 1500 people attended the gathering, posing a serious risk of spreading the coronavirus. As feared, 300 of those who attended the function were later hospitalised for exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 while 10 died from the novel contagion. Foreign members from Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia were also present in the congregation. The police have cordoned off the Nizamuddin Basti after the area showed a spike in COVID-19 cases. The agencies are now tracking all others from across the country who had travelled to Nizamuddin and attended Jamaat’s function.
However, in her bid to take up the cudgel for the defiant holdouts of Tablighi Jamaat, who showed no regards for the public health system and the country’s fight against the deadly contagion, Sagarika attempted to extenuate them by drawing up a ludicrous analogy with parliamentarians functioning to deliberate on the country’s response to the pandemic that has wreaked havoc across the world, particularly in Europe where Italy has so far witnessed 11500 deaths and Spain has seen around 4000 deaths.
India has not been immune to this scourge of coronavirus. The cases of COVID-19 are steadily rising in the country with the nation recording the biggest single-day spike in the number of cases, taking past the tally to more than 1300. People from across the country visited the event held by Tablighi Jamaat which has now emerged as a hotspot of the coronavirus, akin to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in South Korea, which was accounted for 80 per cent of the country’s coronavirus cases. Now, various cases of COVID-19 in different parts of the country, from Kashmir to Andaman, who had travelled to the Jamaat event in Nizamuddin or had come in contact with people who had attended the congregation are now coming to the fore.
It is rather disingenuous on Sagarika’s part to compare the large congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat in contravention of lockdown restrictions to the conscientious parliamentarians risking their lives and slogging to stave off an imminent threat to the nation. It is patently incorrect to equate legislators with a bunch of rabid fundamentalists for whom Constitution is nothing more than a paper while regarding their own religion as a law unto itself. For these religious fanatics, the primacy of their faith is paramount, even if it entails risking public health system and endangering thousands of innocent lives.
