In a major move, the Yogi Adityanath government has booked a few quarantined Tablighi Jamaat members, who misbehaved with the female nursing staff in a hospital in Ghaziabad, under the National Security Act (NSA).

According to reports, the chief minister has invoked NSA against six persons for the shocking acts.

Describing them as “enemies of humanity”, Adityanath said, “They will not follow the law, nor will they accept order. They are the enemies of humanity, what they have done with women healthcare providers is a heinous crime. We are invoking the National Security Act against them, we will not spare them.”

“An incident like Indore where doctors were attacked should not be seen anywhere in the state. For this, we will take whatever action is required by law,” he said.

It is learnt that it has also been decided that female nurses and female police women will not be deployed where the Tablighi Jamaat members have been quarantined.

This comes as the Chief Medical Officer of the MMG Hospital in Ghaziabad had written a letter to the Ghaziabad police informing about the ‘criminal behavior of the Jamaatis’.

The CMO, in his letter, stated that the members of the Tablighi Jamaat who are kept at the isolation ward of the hospital, have been roaming in their wards naked. The letter stated that obscene comments and songs were being heard from the ward, and inmates were asking for beedi-cigarette from the staff of the hospital. The CMO also wrote that these people have also been making lewd gestures towards female employees of the hospital.

Following this, a case for obscene behaviour, non-cooperation and other charges was filed against some inmates of the isolation ward for suspected coronavirus patients in the hospital.

According to the Ghaziabad SSP Kalanidi Naithani, as per a report in IANS, the case was filed at the Kotwali police station under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 354 (assault or criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 294 (punishment for obscene acts) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life).

The complaint also said that some Tablighi followers — who were rounded up and taken by bus to Ghaziabad on Tuesday and Wednesday for a medical check-up after they had been to the Markaz headquarters, said to be the new COVID-19 hotspot in the country, allegedly spat on police personnel and government officials.

The police have been instructed to collect evidence from the affected personnel and eye-witnesses at the hospital for their investigation.

A joint probe by Ghaziabad police chief and Additional District Magistrate was ordered following the complaints.

On Thursday, Delhi Health Secretary Padmini Singla in a letter to the city police commissioner said that Coronavirus patients brought out from the Nizamuddin Markaz were triggering a “law-and-order problem” and “commotions” in hospitals and sought deployment of adequate security personnel at the hospitals designated for COVID-19 treatment and the quarantine facilities in the national capital.

According to the Health Ministry update issued on Thursday evening, about 400 positive cases found across 10 states and Union Territories have links to the Tablighi Jamaat cluster in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area.

Defying lockdown orders and social distancing rules, the Markaz building, which is the international headquarters of ‘Tablighi Jamaat’ from around last 100 years, continued to house about 2,000 people from different parts of the country and world.

The gathering, which featured sermons, was attended by Tablighi members from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan and Saudi Arabia. Members had also come from Afghanistan, Algeria, Djibouti, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, England, Fiji, France and Kuwait.

After the Tablighi Jamaat connection to coronavirus cases in India exploded, India’s total active cases have reached 2,301 including 56 deaths.