A complaint has been filed against 19 members of the Muslim community kept in quarantine in Uttar Pradesh’s Mau for threatening ASHA workers with death after the latter advised them to follow quarantine norms.
About 7 days ago, a few youths in Bhatpara village of Muhammadabad Gohna region were sent into mandatory quarantine after having returned from Mumbai. All of them were held in a private village school which was converted into a quarantine centre.
While they were supposed to remain inside the quarantine centre for 14 days, many of them flouted the quarantine restrictions and were seen outside the facility playing cricket. When the ASHA workers in the area tried to convince the youths to remain inside the quarantine facility lest they possibly infect others, the quarantined members of the Muslim community started dishing out threats to the ASHA workers. ASHA worker Sharda Devi filed a complaint in this regard after which CHC Superintendent Dr AP Singh filed a complaint against 19 quarantined members at the Muhammadabad police station.
ASHA workers habitually subjected to assault
This is not the first time that members of ASHA had been subjected to assault. ASHA workers had been regularly attacked by the miscreants for advising them to follow lockdown and quarantine guidelines.
An ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) worker in Mysuru, Sumayya Firdose, was allegedly attacked by three men, Mehboob, Khaleel and Zeeshan, when she advised them to wear face masks and follow social distancing guidelines. She was reportedly on rounds at Haleem Nagar in Mysuru on Monday to check for Chinese coronavirus symptoms. An FIR was filed against the assailants and the accused were taken under custody after Firdose filed her complaint with the local police.
Earlier, despite DGP’s repeated warnings, miscreants from the minority community assaulted and misbehaved with ASHA workers in Bihar’s Darbhanga. ASHA workers who had come to seek information about the residents with a travel history in the village were subjected to a brutal assault by members of the minority community. Sarees of the female ASHA workers were pulled by the miscreants while the survey form given by them were torn into pieces. After being informed about the attack on ASHA workers, SP Babu Ram immediately dispatched a police team under the leadership of DSP Anuj Kumar reached the spot and tried to pacify the situation.
Most recently, ASHA workers in Odisha’s Rourkela, when they had approached the containment zone on May 4, were attacked and abused by the locals. The ASHA workers had sat on a Dharna on May 5, alleging that the residents of the containment zone had spat on them, and threatened to burn them with kerosene. The ASHA and Anganwadi workers of the Rourkela city had staged a protest demanding protection.
