A Mumbai-based lawyer, Ashish Sohani, has filed a petition in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against China accusing Beijing of failing to contain the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and allowing the deadly virus to spread across the globe.

In his 33-page plea, Sohani has demanded Rs 190 lakh crore on behalf of the Government of India from China.

"This humble Complaint/Petition is being filed on account of the recent outbreak and ongoing disease namely, COVID-19 in China and soon engulfed the entire world in its flames. In this complaint/petition, we will establish, how China has been negligent criminally and has wilfully withheld information regarding the virus and the outbreak, due to which the world is suffering," Sohani said in his peition.

"The People’s Republic of China must be punished for this treason towards humanity, for all those lives lost in the battle to overcome this disease and for the loss of all the precious resources and monetary damage to all other countries. On the 31st December, 2019, the WHO through it’s China office was informed about a “pneumonia like” of unknown etiology (unknown cause) disease which is spreading in Wuhan City, China. It was later, on further inspection known that the disease may have started in the Huanan “Wet” market in Wuhan, where the disease may have “spilled over” from an another species of animal, i.e jumped from another species of animal to human, just like SARS," he added.

"The conditions of these “Wet” markets in China, have very questionable standards of hygiene, slaughtering live animals for fresh meat, and blood soaked floors to keeping wild animals in captivity for slaughter in cages allowing them only defecate there itself. The “Wet” markets sell meats of animals like pangolins, dogs, bats (which is suspected to be the origin of COVID- 19), snakes, civets, etc., apart from the regular meats and seafood. It is highly suspected that the workers handling these wild animals are the transferees of the virus from the carrier wild animals, which then starts to spread to other humans via ‘contact’ transmission, i.e human to

human transmission," noted Sohani.

The petitioner has also mentioned that the 'wet' market in China was closed on January 1, 2020 after it was revealed that coronavirus spread across the globe from this market. "The main objective of the petition is that China has misappropriated its power and authority on its own people, who were blowing the whistle to inform that something is not right, and has wilfully neglected its duty towards humanity, through various treaties and conventions ratified by it internationally," read the petition.

Sohani has accused China of flouting the International Health Regulation as well as the Rome Statute of the ICC. He also claimed that China has failed to act in a prudent manner, until it was too late, by the time they woke up from their lethargy, the disease was spread to many countries.

"Today, the disease has spread to more than 180 countries around the world to over 1.5 Million people, with over 90,000 deaths and the cause and reason is only and only the political opacity and lack of prompt response at the behest of the Chinese authorities," said the petition.

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