Express News Service

GUWAHATI: An FIR was lodged by Tripura Police against the state’s former Health Minister and sitting BJP MLA Sudip Roy Barman for allegedly violating protocol by visiting a Covid care centre “without prior permission”.

Tripura West District Magistrate, Sandeep Mahatme, had directed Barman to go for seven days’ institutional quarantine, followed by as many days’ home quarantine. However, the MLA refused to follow the order on the grounds that a doctor has not advised him so.

He had visited the Bhagat Singh Covid Care Centre in Agartala on Sunday and distributed fruits to the patients.

Incidentally, Barman is a bete noire of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. He was sacked as the state’s Minister for Health and other departments in May last year. He had won the 2013 elections on Congress’s ticket but defected to Trinamool Congress along with six Congress MLAs. In 2017, all of them had joined the BJP.

Invoking the Epidemic Diseases Act and the Disaster Management Act, the DM, in a memorandum to Barman, said the MLA was found in association with Covid-19 patients or “is said to be found in a contaminated environment of the said Covid care centre and is, therefore, at a higher risk of developing the disease”.

He said CCTV footage revealed Barman had a face-to face-contact with Covid-19 positive patients at a distance of one metre.

“…For the safety of yours and the community at large, you are hereby directed to remain in institutional quarantine for seven days at the Regional Survey Training Institute (RSTI) quarantine centre from today (Monday) followed by seven days’ home quarantine,” the DM’s memorandum reads.

However, Barman claimed the memorandum was not in accordance with the July 2, 2020 guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

“I ought to have been clinically-assigned as very mild/mild, moderate, severe pre-symptomatic/asymptomatic Covid patient by a medical officer. Secondly, I had put on the PPE kit by trained doctors posted at the Covid care centre, taken all precautionary measures so that I don’t get contaminated and maintained more than one metre distance from Covid-19 patients,” Barman wrote to the DM.

He said his visit to the Covid centre was in the knowledge of senior health officials and not unauthorised.

“…It seems some vested interest persons are trying to put me intentionally in the RSTI quarantine centre so that I can easily come in contact with others who have tested positive which would be hazardous to my life…

“I would, thereby, state that as long as I am (not) clinically-assigned as very mild/mild, moderate, severe symptomatic/asymptomatic Covid patient by a medical officer, I will not be available to go for any sort of quarantine,” Barman categorically stated.