E-Paper
Kanpur college principal caught on camera making controversial comment against Muslims, says video morphed
When asked for her side, Arti Lalchandani said the video was 70 days old and morphed to malign her.
Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in Uttar Pradesh, the principal of GSVM Medical College in Kanpur has made controversial comments about the Muslims.
In remarks which have been caught on camera, Arti Lalchandani is heard calling the Muslims - being treated in one of the hospitals for Covid-19 - as terrorists who deserve to be put in jail and tortured.
She is also seen accusing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of being soft and indulging in appeasement politics. “They are terrorists, we are exhausting our resources on them. We are extending our hospitality to these terrorists. Yogi (chief minister) should have given a clear order that they would not be treated here,” she is heard saying in the video which surfaced on Sunday.
Lalchandani further complains in the video that district magistrate suppressed her for bringing this issue up because he takes order from Yogi Adityanath. “I am writing to the Union health minister (also her batchmate at medical college) Harsh Vardhan because no one listens to me and continues to extend hospitality.”
The principal says there was just a single case before 22 members of Tablighi Jamaat were admitted at the LLR hospital for Covid-19 treatment. “The GDP of India will contract and there will be a economic emergency, and the reason for this will be these 30 crore and not the 100 crore,” she said.
“These terrorist,” she says, “do not deserve to be put in jail and beaten up in solitary confinement than the hospital. They needed to be abandoned in the jungle.”
The video was shot during an interaction of Lalchandani with a group of people, few of them reporters. The members of the Jamaat had accused her in turn of harassment.
The Jamaat members had said that in April the medical college administration snapped the electricity and water connections in the isolation wards they were in. More so, they alleged that the staff misbehaved with them and things normalised only after intervention of district authorities.
When asked for her side, Lalchandani said the video was 70 days old and morphed to malign her. The words like Tablighi, she said, were superimposed by a journalist to blackmail and extort money from her. “I will lodge an FIR with the police. This video was made at my home when I was complaining about the bad behaviour of Jamaatis who were harassing the health workers,” she said in a written statement to Hindustan Times.
“Some people are construing it as anti-Muslim. I had never anything against the Muslims. My most loved friends are Muslims faculty and students. The words were added by the journalist; I never mentioned them,” she said.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) Politburo member Subhashini Ali said that the language the principal has used is unconstitutional and highly objectionable. In a statement, she said that the district administration should get the video examined and Lalchandandi should be removed from her position and criminal charges needed to pressed if the video is found authentic.
She has broken her oath and the constitution, she said.
