'Fear people in quarantine will be injected with Coronavirus and murdered': Assam MLA Aminul Islam arrested after audio tape goes viral

Assam Police has arrested MLA and senior AIUDF leader Aminul Islam for charges of misleading people during COVID-19 outbreak.[caption id=“attachment_8235921” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Dhing MLA Aminul Islam.[/caption] “The MLA has confessed in the interrogation that the viral audio clip was made and circulated by him. It was recorded for a particular community and police has recovered the same from his handset. Being an elected representative Aminul Islam has hurt the secular fabric of India, more cases may be registered against him,” Nagaon SP Abhijit Gurav said in a presser. The case was filed by one Kapinjal Sarma with Nagaon police station under 877/20 US 120(B)/153A/124A/295A. A team of Nagaon Police on Monday evening picked up Dhing MLA Aminul Islam for interrogation and after several hours of grilling, he was arrested at 2 am. Police are yet to announce on what laws he will be charged with. Police have got hold of a viral audio tape where Islam was propagating conspiracy theory against Muslims by the Assam government in the name of Tablighi Jamaat and coronavirus. One could hear him saying in Assamese, “It’s really sad the government is cherry-picking people without no sign of illness and testing. They are not allowed to have food and kept in a very shabby shelter where even a bottle of water or mosquito coil and net are not available. They are not allowing family members to provide any amenities to them. They are given no food and no proper arrangement for sleeping. These people went to Tablighi Jamaat more than a month ago. They have no sign and just to target a section these dramas are going on. I fear they will be injected with coronavirus and murdered.” The legislator also alleged in the viral audio phone tape that the isolation wards set up by the government are worse than the detention centres. After the first positive case of Tablighi Jamaat came out, he peddled a rumour on his Facebook page that the person is not corona positive. Islam is a two-time MLA from Dhing in Nagaon district. He is a post-graduate with a BEd degree. Earlier in his career, he used to be a teacher. The AIUDF leader is infamous for frequently picking up communal controversy. Allegedly Islam’s hateful propaganda is one of the reasons many people who attended Tablighi Jamaat are hiding and not coming out for quarantine. **Click here for Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates** Till Tuesday, Assam has 27 active cases of COVID-19 and 26 of them have links with the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Nizamuddin. As announced by Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday that many Nijamuddin-returned persons are yet to be traced. “Assam government received four lists from the Centre where names of a total of 831 peoples who attended the Tablighi Markaz were included. Fifty of them have not returned to the state, 491 samples have been collected for test and another 128 samples will be sent for testing in no time. The minister warned cases will be registered under the Disaster Management Act against all who are still hiding and not coming out despite many repetitive appeals by the state government,” Sarma said.