Babul Supriyo tweets video of 'suspected COVID patients lying with dead in Kolkata hospital'

In the video, the authenticity of which has not been verified by IBNS, a person who claims to be a suspected COVID-19 patient says several others like him are sharing a ward with the deceased at M.R.Bangur Hospital at Tollygunge in south Kolkata.

Supriyo, who represents West Bengal's apparent prime opposition force Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), tweeted the video urging Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to conduct an inquiry into the alleged incident.

"This is a shocking video that has emerged frm alleged M.R.Bangur Hospital,Tollygunje, WB•It is shocking in every sense of the term•Since this VDO is in the Public Domain, I wud request Honble WBCM @MamataOfficial to conduct a thorough enquiry into it&release the FACTs asap," he tweeted.

In an indirect attack on the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), Supriyo added, "If this is true, majority believe it is, then fight agnst #Covid_19india wil only get harder with people running away frm the most essential need of the hour - that of more testing•Why wud some1 subject himself to such conditions where instead of cure U get closer to mortality?"

The unverified video emerged on social media at a time the West Bengal government is facing heat from the Opposition over its alleged lack of COVID-19 testing.

Countering the claims of Chief Minister Banerjee that the state had a lack of testing kits, director of ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) here, Shanta Dutta, on Apr 13 had confirmed that there was no shortage of COVID-19 test kits in their lab, but they were not getting enough samples from the state for test.

However, ICMR has also admitted that many kits were faulty and asked the states to halt testing for two days.

A political blame-game has raged between the TMC and BJP after the saffron party-led central government sent a two Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) without informing Banerjee in prior to seven districts of West Bengal for making spot-assessment of the COVID-19 situation. 

After the Centre on Tuesday slammed the state government for non-cooperation, the officials were allowed to take a tour in Kolkata which is one of the four Coronavirus hotspots of West Bengal.