NEW DELHI: A mix of rumours on social media and misinformation about quarantine centres could be provoking mobs to attack medical teams. In at least two recent instances — in UP’s Moradabad and Indore — where doctors and cops were attacked while trying to take people to quarantine centres, local residents told TOI that videos and messages about alleged mistreatment in such places were circulating in the days preceding the assault.
On Thursday, Union minister for minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi tweeted that rumours about isolation centres were being floated and there was a need to educate the public on it.
Dr S C Agarwal, a member of the team that was pelted with stones on Wednesday in Moradabad (a missile left him bleeding from a deep gash on his head), said a video about alleged mistreatment and mismanagement at quarantine centres might have provoked the mob. Residents in Nawabpura locality where the incident occurred said they had seen a video that warned them about “quarantine centres acting like detention centres”.
A woman at Nawabpura told TOI, “The medical team had come to pick up