A habeas corpus petition has been filed in the Madras High Court accusing the State government of having kept six Thai nationals in a special camp at a Borstal School despite all of them having been granted interim bail in a criminal case booked against them.
Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and Pushpa Sathyanarayana on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on the petition to Monday next at the request of a government counsel. Advocate A. Syed Kaleesha of Chennai had filed the case with a plea to set the foreigners at liberty forthwith.
According to the petitioner, Sohwang Donramarn, 75, Bao Wangae, 69, Thawisak Yeeraman, 39, Korled Lateh, 69, Amnat Sohnai, 58, and Muhammad Sa-U, 47, had come to India on tourist visas along with one Khamidoi Donrosak who subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.
Claiming that they were allowed to step out of the airport on March 6 only after screening, the petitioner said that none of them had any idea that Donrosak was suffering from COVID-19 until the health officials in Erode subjected them to tests on April 6.
Immediately, thereafter, they were quarantined and a criminal case was also booked against them for endangering the lives of others by spreading the disease and having reportedly indulged in religious propagation despite having come to the country on a tourist visa.
Denying the allegations, the six individuals moved the High Court seeking bail on the ground that they were only practising their faith and staying in mosques, because they could not afford to pay for hotel accommodation, and hence such acts would not amount to an offence.
Though the High Court granted interim bail to them on May 6 on condition that they should surrender their passports and stay in Chennai, the police had shifted them to a borstal school inside the central prison campus at Puzhal and not letting them step out, the petitioner said.