ANMs harassed in Nuh village, get police security

Gurugram, April 8

Around 20 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) were allegedly harassed and teased by men of Nuh’s Bisru villager during Covid field duty. When accompanying male staff intervened, they were allegedly manhandled, threatened and driven out of the village.

Owing to the high number of cases in Nuh district, ANMs have been asked to conduct door-to-door survey in villages. They alleged villagers passed lewd comments and misbehaved with them repeatedly. “We went to all houses in Bisru village and faced a problem in most. The men kept staring at us and passed lewd comments. One of them even asked me to marry him in the local mosque if I wanted to screen him,” one of the ANMs said.

A male health worker accompanying the ANMs said the villagers were ogling at the ANMs and misbehaving with them. “We asked the villagers to behave themselves, but they manhandled us, turned us out of the village and threatened us with dire consequences if we returned. People are neither cooperating nor behaving well,” he said.

After being chased out of the village, the workers took up the matter with the Health Department and refused to return to work in such conditions. Taking a serious note of the incident, security has now been provided to the team.

“We received a complaint and have immediately deputed a police team to ensure security of staff. This survey is vital to fight cluster transmission of Covid and people need to realise this and cooperate. Anybody misbehaving shall be penalised,” said Nuh Chief Medical Officer Dr Virender Yadav. — OC