Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday warned his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal against trying to exploit the Covid crisis to instigate people in Punjab’s villages.
Amarinder said Kejriwal’s announcement asking Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers to go around villages and streets of Punjab with Oxymeters to check people’s oxygen levels, raised serious questions on the role of his party in the conspiracy to undermine the Punjab government’s efforts to keep the pandemic under check and save the lives of the people of the state.
The Delhi CM’s decision could have grave repercussions for Punjab’s security and integrity, said Captain Amarinder, warning Kejriwal against playing into the hands of anti-India forces from across the border, who are trying to use the Covid pandemic to foment fresh trouble for the state.
Amarinder asked the Delhi CM to stay out of Punjab and focus on managing Covid in his own state, where the situation was worsening by the day with more than 2500 new cases being reported yesterday and hospitals reportedly running out of ICU beds again.
“We don’t need your Oxymeters. We just need you to rein in your workers in Punjab, where they are trying to incite my people into not going to hospitals to get themselves tested and treated for Covid,” said Amarinder to Kejriwal.
The CM said Punjab, which have witnessed a spurt of fake news and provocative videos, at least one of which was found to have emanated from abroad, most likely Pakistan, and propagated by an active worker of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who has been arrested.
“The AAP worker is being questioned to ascertain who motivated him to circulate the outrageous post of a dead body to mislead the people of Punjab into believing that organs of dead Corona patients were being removed by the Punjab health department,” Amarinder said.
Photographs and videos claiming doctors were removing vital organs of Covid patients had been traced to 31-year-old Amrinder, who was an AAP worker operating from Moga.
Such rumours are provoking a section of the community to resist proper medical care which needs to be provided to all Covid affected citizens, which is a clear case of a deadly criminal conspiracy against the people of the State who are already suffering due to the pandemic, said Amarinder.
There were enough indications of a massive plot by elements inimical to the interests of Punjab, he said, disclosing that the police had on Thursday morning registered another case (FIR No. 238) at PS Civil Lines, Patiala, on a complaint by a local medical journalist, who was offered $100 for making and circulating a false video on Covid scare.