57 foreign jamaatis identified in Madhya Pradesh, passports seized

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday said that the government has identified 57 foreign jamaatis who came on tourist visas and moved around without informing the authorities.

"We will not let anyone toy with human lives. We identified 57 foreign jamaatis. They came on tourist visas and moved around without informing anyone while being carriers (of coronavirus). So their passports have been seized and they are being blacklisted," he said.

Speaking on Indore's incident, he said that the matter of concern is that the people should have declared themselves but people did not give information.

"People should come forward by themselves to disclose their info but they hesitated. COVID-19 kept spreading. There was a lack of cooperation. You will see this issue in some specific areas in Indore. People also create problems to see that the health staff can't go in there," he said.

"It's important to save lives so health staff went back to those areas. I'd like to appeal to people to not toy with their own lives. If one becomes a carrier, then he will affect many others. We took strict action against such people. We invoked National Security Act (NSA)," he added.

He said any large of small gathering should not be held in the state.

"I am reiterating that no function, large or small, should be held. If someone organises such functions or obstructs the medical procedure then FIR will be registered against them and they will be sent to jail," Chief Minister said.

He said that the government has made arrangements for testing kits to test coronaviurs patient and now 500 tests are being done in seven places in a day.

Speaking to ANI he said, "There was not testing system before and no test kit was available but now the government has made arrangements and 500 test are being done in a day."

"PPEs are being prepared in Madhya Pradesh and now we have enough PPEs available," he added.

He said that the government has decided to provide ration to the people who are not ration card holders.

"The government has decided to provide ration to all the labourers who do not have ration cards and the government also transferred the scholarship amount of about Rs 480 crore," he said.

"Also, the government transferred the amount of Rs 1000 in the account of construction workers and two months of pension to the beneficiaries of Samajik Suraksha Pension," he added.

India's tally of positive novel coronavirus cases rose to 3,374 on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Out of the total cases, 3,030 are active cases, 266 have been cured or discharged, while there are 77 deaths.