Ballia (UP): Three government medical personnel, including two doctors, and their driver were injured after their car was attacked by a group of people. It happened when the medical personnel had gone to a village here to give medicines to a COVID-19 patient. They also were checking on the patient’s home isolation, police said Monday. Ballia District Magistrate Aditi Singh said the administration is mulling action under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against the offender. The incident took place at Paswan Chowk village on Sunday.
SHO of Bairia police station Rajiv Mishra termed the attack an act of ‘madness’. He informed that the health department team after reaching told the villagers that it has come for COVID testing. This triggered a dispute and led to the attack.
A complaint has been lodged at the Bairia police station. It said the medical team’s vehicle was surrounded by about 60 people and it was attacked.
In his complaint, medical officer Neeraj Kumar Singh, who was injured, said ‘around 60 persons, including women and children, surrounded our government vehicle, and attacked the team’. “Members of the team somehow managed to escape from there,” Singh informed. However, myself, Dr Amit Kumar Gautam, lab assistant Upendra Prasad and driver Lal Bahadur Yadav were injured,” he added.
Two of the offenders identified as Jitendra and Upendra have been arrested in this case.
Singh said when the health team reached the villagers said none of them is infected with COVID-19. The villagers claimed that the health officials in the garb of checking COVID-19 were indulging in distributing government money among themselves, he added.
Singh has been referred to Varanasi for treatment. Doctors and staff at a primary health centre have abstained from work in protest against the attack.