New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi once again slammed the Centre over the recent arrests of several people on the allegation of putting up posters critical of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Vaccine Maitri mission.
Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Gandhi wrote "Arrest me too" with a picture of the poster and also changed his Twitter profile picture to that of the poster questioning the Prime Minister's policy decision on COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
Arrest me too.
मुझे भी गिरफ़्तार करो। pic.twitter.com/eZWp2NYysZ
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 16, 2021
Several other leaders too condemned Centre's action for curtailing the freedom of speech. The posters were put up in Delhi and at least 17 people have been arrested by the Delhi police.
"Modiji humare bachon ki vaccine videsh kyu bhej diya (Modiji why did you send vaccines of our children to foreign countries?)" the posters read.
As many as 25 FIRs under Sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code and other relevant sections, including Section 3 of the Prevention of Defacement of Property Act was registered for putting up the posters.
The backlash for the Centre comes as India struggles against a devastating second wave of the COVID-19 that has overwhelmed the healthcare infrastructure of the country.
Meanwhile, there were 3,11,170 new COVID-19 cases and 4,077 deaths in the last 24 hours. India has recorded a total of 2,46,84,077 coronavirus infections, of which, 2,07,95,335 people have recovered, while 2,70,284 have died of the fatal virus. There are still 36,18,458 active cases in the country.
