AIDUF Leader Alleges Govt Bias in Covid-19 Testing, Calls Isolation Wards Worse Than Detention Centres; Arrested

Guwahati: The Assam police on Monday arrested an MLA and senior AIUDF leader, Aminul Islam, for spread fabricated news and “misleading” people as the country reels from the COVID-19 pandemic.

A team of Nagaon police picked up Islam for interrogation in the evening and was arrested at 2am after several hours of grilling. The police, however, hasn’t mentioned if he has been booked under the NSA or not.

The cops were alerted after an audio tape, where the MLA can be heard propagating fake news against the state government, went viral.

“It’s really sad that the government is cherry-picking people without any sign of illness and testing them. They are kept in a very shabby shelter where even food, a bottle of water or mosquito coils are not available. They are not allowing family members to provide any amenities to them. They are given proper arrangement for sleeping. These people attended the Tablighi Jamaat over a month ago, they have no sign and just to target a community, this drama is going on. I fear they will be injected with coronavirus and murdered,” Islam can be heard saying in Assamese.

Further, Islam alleged that the isolation wards set up by the government are worse than the detention centres and called the first positive case of Jamaat a “rumour”.

Islam is a two-times MLA from Dhing, Nagaon, and is infamous for stoking controversies. The AIDUF leader was a teacher during the initial days of career.

As on Tuesday, Assam has 27 active cases of coronavirus and out of them, 26 are connected to the event at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz.

The state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said many Markaz-returnees are yet to be traced. “The Assam government has received four lists from the Centre, where names of total 831 people who attended the Tablighi Jamaat were included. Fifty of them have not returned to the state and 491 samples have been collected for testing and another 128 samples will be sent,” he said.

Sarma warned that cases will be registered under the Disaster Act against all those who are hiding and not revealing the details of their travel despite repeated appeals by state government.