New Delhi: The Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) has asked the city’s health department to stop mentioning Nizamuddin Markaz in its daily bulletins on coronavirus cases.
In a letter to the secretary, Delhi Health Department, chairman of the commission Zafarul Islam Khan asked the department to drop any mention of ‘religious undertones’ in its daily bulletins.
The daily bulletins update the number of fresh coronavirus cases and deaths due to the epidemic including figures of those who were evacuated from Tablighi Jamat Markaz after they were stranded there due to lockdown.
As per the last updated bulletin Thursday, the total number of coronavirus cases in the national capital stood at 720 including 426 from the Markaz. Nine people have succumbed to the virus so far.
“Such thoughtless classification is feeding into the Islamophobia agenda of the media and Hindutva forces and has been easily turned into a handle to attack Muslims across the country,” Khan alleged in his letter.
Muslims are being ‘attacked’ in various areas, calls are being made for their ‘social boycott’, and a boy was ‘lynched’ in the northwest Delhi, Zafarul Islam Khan mentioned in his letter.
The World Health Organisation(WHO) has taken cognisance of this phenomenon and its Emergency Programme Director Mike Ryan has said countries should not profile novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in terms of religion or any other criteria, stated the letter.
PTI