BJD MLA Uma Samantaray Booked For Flouting Covid-19 Protocols At Maharathy's Funeral

Puri: The Sea Beach Police Station on Friday registered a case against BJD's Satyabadi MLA Umakanta Samantaray for attending the funeral of MLA Pradeep Maharathy at Puri Swargadwar last Sunday despite having been tested positive for Covid-19 a couple of days earlier.

A case has been lodged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 269 (unlawfully or negligently spreading infection of any disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and under section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act.

The convenor of Jagannath Sena, Priyadarshi Mishra and BJP's youth wing had earlier lodged complaints at the Sea Beach Police Station against Samantray and State's School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash alleging that although the two BJD legislators had tested positive for novel-Coronavirus a few days before, they attended the last rites of Maharathy posing threat to the thousands of people from and outside the pilgrim city present there.

Dash however had later clarified that he had tested positive for Covid-19 on September 14 and attended the last rites of Maharathy as he had completed 21 days of quarantine period.

However, Samantaray did not respond in connection with the allegations.
It is worth mentioning that on September 28, Samantaray through his twitter handle had informed that he had tested positive for Covid-19.

(Edited By Suryakant Jena)

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