A complaint has been filed in a Bihar court against Chinese President Xi Jinping and World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for allegedly conspiring to spread coronavirus worldwide.
The complaint has been filed before Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bettiah district in Bihar by advocate Murad Ali claiming that the Chinese President and the WHO chief were responsible for the spread of COVID-19 from China's Wuhan city to the entire world.
The court will hear the case on June 16.
The advocate has charged Xi and Tedros under various sections - 307 (attempt to murder), 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 270 (Malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and various other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
It is alleged that the two conspired to commit the said crime of spreading the deadly COVID-19 virus across the world which took millions of lives, the plea said.
The plea further stated that Tedros concealed the information in relation to Xi's actions from the world and remained mum on the claims that the deadly virus was spread to the world through China. "This points to the fact that the duo entered in conspiracy to commit this crime of spreading the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe," the plea read.
Filing the criminal suit, Ali mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump as witnesses in the plea.
In April this year, over 40 people in Lakhimpur district filed complaints against Chinese President Xi over the coronavirus situation in Uttar Pradesh.
The complaints include those by lawyers and social activists, who have blamed the top Chinese leader for allowing the coronavirus to spread, endangering the lives of millions. China's Wuhan city was the epicenter of the disease that has since December killed over 400,000 people worldwide and infected close to 7.5 million people.
Earlier, a suit was filed in a Texas District Court in the US seeking compensatory damages of over US $20 trillion against China for the "creation and release, accidental or otherwise" of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a biological weapon in violation of China's international obligations.
The plaintiffs sought a whopping $20 trillion, which even surpasses the Chinese GDP, claiming coronavirus is the result of a biological weapon created by Beijing. They accused China of aiding and abetting death, provision of material support to terrorists, conspiracy to cause injury and death of US citizens, negligence, wrongful death, and assault and battery.
( With inputs from IANS )