On Saturday, in his first response after Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz event which became the new hotspot for coronavirus, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has said that no point of treating people who attended Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi, they should be shot dead.
While addressing the media for the first time after nationwide lockdown, Raj Thackeray said, "Why are we treating them, they should shot down.”
The mid-March Islamic religious discourse was attended by thousands of Tablighi Jamaat members, along with hundreds of foreigners -- many of them suspected coronavirus-positive -- and has triggered a nationwide scare of community spread of the virus.
"Our country is undergoing such a huge crisis and at such times,they are putting religion above the nation. And if there is some devious consipracy on; then such elemnets need to be singled out and lashed at physically. And such videos need to go viral," he further added.
The MNS chief also urged people to follow the lockdown and warned of its extension if they failed to do so. Thackeray also condemned the attacks on the health, civic and police officials and applauded their efforts to keep coronavirus at bay.
With 47 fresh cases of coronavirus being reported in the state, the total number of positive cases on Saturday rose to 537, according to Maharashtra Health Department. Out of these 47 cases, 28 have been reported from Mumbai, 15 from Thane district, 2 in Pune and 1 each from Amravati, and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday, Maharashtra was the worst-hit state by the COVID-19 infection. With 355 new cases reported in the last 12 hours, India's tally of coronavirus positive cases rose to 2,902, said the ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.
(Inputs from Agencies)
