The attack on a medical team in Moradabad on April 15 is turning out to be a story of distrust, fuelled by rumours, between a section of the Muslim community and the administration, and perhaps, a lack of understanding of the demands of an unprecedented situation.
To bridge the gap, a team of officers led by Superintendent of Police (City) Amit Anand and Circle Officer (Katghar) Poonam Sirohi were showered with 10 quintals of rose petals on Prince Road on Friday.
Noman Mansoori, president, Handicraft Development Society, who organised the felicitation said he condemned the attack and together with like-minded people felt that the police, who were serving them during the lockdown should be welcomed. When The Hindu asked him why didn’t they felicitate the medical staff, Mr. Mansoori said after some medical officials declared that they won’t go for taking samples of possible COVID-19 patients, many in the community feared that now police would go door to door to pick people. “Already 200 unnamed persons have been named in the FIR and we have heard that some people have been picked up for questioning. We wanted to ease the tension,” said Mr. Mansoori, who works with artisans of the brass industry.
Looking back at the event of April 15, Mr. Mansoori said the “condemnable reaction” was a combination of many things. “The family had lost two members in quick succession. The administration said it was because of COVID-19 but the family maintained that one had a heart attack and the other had tuberculosis. Most of them are illiterate and could not process the information on a disease that is new for all of us. Even today, explaining social distancing during the felicitation was a task.”
Secondly, he added, in Muslims, when a wife loses her husband, she observes a period of iddat, which lasts for around four months. “Usually, women spend this period of mourning at home. When the team went to take the family, people tried to explain that the wife should be spared. We know this was not possible but had there been a senior person or a cleric with the team, a way out could have been explored. We did it successfully when some people tried to avoid polio vaccine,” he argued.
