A team of three women surveying residents of a locality in Indore for influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory illnesses was allegedly attacked by locals on Saturday.
Although the supervisor of the team said they were physically assaulted, the police claimed there was no physical contact, and the accused had only broken a mobile phone of a schoolteacher, who was part of the team.
Vinod Dixit, in-charge of the Palasia police station, claimed the survey team was caught in a dispute between neighbours in Vinoba Nagar. “The accused suspected they were being filmed and that the team was calling the police, but they were using their phones as part of the survey.”
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The survey is being conducted based on an application-based questionnaire.
One of the accused, Paras Borasi, was accused of selling liquor illegally, so his neighbours Kamal Yadav and Ashok Yadav put up streetlights near his house. This caused a scuffle between the two sides in the morning, in which one of them was hurt. The survey team was near the spot, said Mr. Dixit.
“No sharp weapons were used. One of the accused is absconding,” he added.
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Rejecting the claim that the team was physically assaulted, Jaiveer Singh Bhadoria, Assistant Superintendent of Police, East (Zone-I), said, “The team was not physically assaulted. The police are with health teams at all times,” he said.
A case will be registered against the accused, said Vivek Sharma, Inspector General of Police, Indore Zone.
The survey is being conducted across the city to pre-empt the coronavirus by catching symptoms in patients early, in a bid to bring down mortalities. Indore recently recorded a fatality rate of 12%, the highest for any city in the country, and boasts the third-most number of cases.
On April 1, locals pelted a team of health workers, including doctors, with stones when it was tracing contacts of a patient in another locality of Indore.
