FIR against coronavirus positive corporator for stalling hospitalisation

Padarayanapura corporator Imran Pasha has been booked for refusing to cooperate with the authorities when they tried to shift him to Victoria Hospital after he tested positive for Covid-19.

Pasha took a Covid-19 test on Friday after developing health problems. The report came back positive. BBMP health officials tried to contact him in order to hospitalise him. But his number was switched off. The officials then informed the police. A BBMP medical team, along with an assistant commissioner of police (ACP) and other officials, managed to track him down the next day but he allegedly refused to talk to them or cooperate with them for hospitalisation.

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At the same time, many of his followers gathered at the place without maintaining social distance. It took more than three and a half hours to hospitalise him, said Ramesh B, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West).

The BBMP filed a complaint against the corporator. Accordingly, police have booked him under IPC sections pertaining to disobeying government orders, encouraging unlawful assembly and not maintaining social distance. They have also sought the court’s permission to book him under the harsher National Disaster Management Act, Ramesh said.

The DCP suggested that it was Pasha who had called his followers to the spot in order to stall the hospitalisation.

Padarayanapura has emerged as a Covid-19 hotspot after scores of its residents tested positive for the disease. The western Bengaluru locality is one of the containment zones in the city.