Sohini Chatterjee
Madhya Pradesh chief Kamal Nath got a FIR registered against him for allegedly creating panic through his remarks, over the Coronavirus Pandemic, a police official said.
The case was registered against him based on a complaint lodged Bhopal BJP district president Sumeet Pachouri and two other BJP MLAs; Vishwas Sarang and Rameshwar Sharma, said the officer.
The former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath was charged under section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant) of the IPC (The Indian Penal Code, 1860) along with the section 54 (making or circulating a false warning as to disaster or its severity or magnitude leading to panic) of National Disaster Management Act 2005, the official said.
The action was taken against Nath based on the complaint and the two videos provided in a pen drive by the two complainants, said the Bhopal Headquarter Superintendent of Police, Ramji Shrivastav.
Without giving away any further details, he just said that the investigation into the case is going on.
“Corona which has spread in the world is being known as the Indian variant of the virus“, said Nath in his press conference at Ujjain on Saturday. This was also alleged by the BJP leaders in the complaint.
The complaint also said that Kamal Nath’s statements in the moment of crisis was defaming the country internationally as well as creating confusion among the people.
The guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO), to stem Covid-19, had been disobeyed by Kamal Nath and that his acts amounted to sedition, the complaint added.
Kamal Nath’s “false allegations” about the government hiding the real number of deaths due to coronavirus, actively creates fear and falls under the category of criminal offence, stated the complaint.