17 people who attacked medical team, cops in Moradabad jailed after 3 am court hearing

By Namita Bajpai|

Express News Service |

Published: 17th April 2020 03:35 PM

A team of medical personnel and police along with the family members of a person who died of COVID-19 sit inside a vandalised ambulance after a mob attacked their vehicle with stones in Moradabad Wednesday. (Photo | PTI)

LUCKNOW: Taking immediate action against the mob which attacked a medical team and cops in Moradabad, the remand magistrate convened a special court at 3 am on Friday and ordered a 14-day judicial remand for all 17 culprits including seven women.

Subsequent to the remand order, all the 17 people arrested were sent to jail and lodged in a separate barrack at 5 am on Friday. They all belong to a hotspot of Moradabad where a COVID-19 patient had succumbed to the coronavirus during treatment at TMU medical collge on April 14.

A crowd of locals had launched an attack on the medical team, comprising doctors and nursing staff along with cops, who had gone to Nagphani area of Nawabapur locality of Moradabad to pick up a suspected COVID-19 patient, who is the brother of the man who had died.

The patient to be picked up by the medical team had been suffering from fever. Meanwhile, other members of the family had already been quarantined in the medical facility.

While 17 people were named in the FIR for the attack in which a doctor and two cops had sustained grievous injuries, 200 other unidentified people were also booked. In the melee, an ambulance and two police vehicles were also vandalised by the mob.

As per the sources, having arrested all 17 culprits, police urged the magistrate to allow them to produce the troublemakers immediately in court. Realising the gravity of the situation, the magistrate convened the court at his house in the wee hours to conduct the hearing and pass the remand order.

The 17 people arrested in the case have been booked under the provisions of the National Security Act, National Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Act and Sections of the IPC.

Efforts were also on to nab others who had fled the locality. Police are believed to have gathered photos and other incriminatory information about the culprits with the help of CCTV footage and drone cameras deployed for surveillance in the locality.