Pakistan’s prominent cleric Maulana Tariq Jameel said that the novel coronavirus has been brought to humanity as a repercussion to the “wrongdoing of women”. The cleric made the comments on live television during the Ehsaas Telethon fund raising event on Thursday in the presence of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, as per media reports.

The media report cited in the Hindustan Times said that the cleric put the blame of the widespread global pandemic on “women who dress scantily”. He further condemned them and said their behavior is the reason why god’s wrath has been brought upon the country as a virus.

Later, Jameel blamed media for blowing his remarks on women out of proportions and apologized saying it was a slip of tongue. However, he did not apologize for his offensive remarks on women.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called out the cleric for his offensive statement against women.

The commission took to Twitter and wrote: “HRCP is appalled at Maulana Tariq Jamil’s recent statement inexplicably correlating women’s ‘modesty’ to the Covid19 pandemic. Such blatant objectification is unacceptable and, when aired on public television, only compounds the misogyny entrenched in society.”

The country widely-read newspaper Dawn said that it is a “shame” that the cleric was not corrected when he made these offensive comments.

According to the United Nations, cases of domestic abuse cases have increased unprecedentedly across the world during the coronavirus pandemic due to the prolonged lockdown that has confined people to their homes.