Kolkata, (Samajweekly) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday allotted a government flat on rent to a nurse who was prevented from staying at her house by locals wary of contracting Covid-19, warning that such people could be jailed under the Disaster Management Act.
Recounting the incident in Ranaghat of Nadia district, Banerjee said the nurse was not allowed to stay at home with her mother and brother by the locals.
“In today’s world, how can people have such a mentality? A nurse is not allowed to stay at home. She has her mother and brother there, why shouldn’t her family be allowed to stay?
“I appeal with folded hands to tho0se doing such things. If somebody gets affected in your house, will you behave in a similar manner? Then this nurse, doctor, heath worker will save you,” she said.
The Chief Minister said the government has decided to allot her a government flat on rent. “I am allotting it to her. If any more such case happens, we will take care of the victims,” she said.
She also expressed dismay over a doctor being not allowed into the housing society where he resides, and having to spend the night in his car.
“We have received seven to eight cases. If the government wants, it can jail such persons for six months to one year. We are not going for that right now. We pope people will understand,” she said.
Banerjee appealed to :mothers and sisters” to come forward and resist people indulging in such things. “I apeal to mothers are sisters to come forward, and resist such people. They should form Bongo Janani (Mothers of Bengal group in villages”.
Banerjee also spoke out against locals preventing cremation of Covid-19 victims.
“If some positive Covid 19 patent dies, the germs don’t get spread during cremation. But we find some people preventing cremation of such patients,” she said.
Regarding the violence in Jamuria of West Burdwan district, where seven police personnel were beaten up by locals protesting against a quarantine centre being set up in the area, she said: “They could have told the administration not to earmark a youth hostel in the congested area as quarantine centre.
“But instead they beat up the officer-in-charge. Why? After I heard it was a congested locality, I asked the District Magistrate to shift the centre immediately.”
Banerjee reminded District Magistrates and Police Superintendents that she has given a standing instruction to set up quarantine centres in isolated areas.
She also said that a private hospital in North Bengal’s Siliguri refused to allow the facility from being turned into a Covid hospital after agreeing initially and alleged that some political parites also started agitating that no Corona hospital can be set up there.
“Why? We can set up Covid hospitals anywhere. If the government decides to acquire, it can do so in one second. But we don’t act in such manner,” she said.
