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Bengaluru, May 25: Helpless dairy farmers in a village in Bangaluru Rural district have dumped around 4,000 litres of milk into drains and on anthills.

The shocking incident took place at Chikka Korati near Hoskote yesterday after the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) refused to collect the milk because a pregnant woman in the village had tested positive for Covid-19.

The village was sealed off three days ago and three of the woman’s family was sent to institutional quarantine. The incident is an embarrassment since the government has been urging people not to stigmatise patients or their contacts.

“In Hoskote taluk, we lead in milk production,” Guru Korati, a villager, said. “There are around 130 families in the village, but we have two milk producers’ cooperative societies (MPCSs) – Chikka Korati MPCS and Dinne Korati MPCS. Our village produces more than 4,000 litres per day. The KMF refused to collect milk from both societies after they learnt about the positive case. Frustrated, we poured the milk down the drain.”

Guru wanted the government to address the village’s problems. “We are not only struggling to sell milk, but we also cannot transport vegetables which we cultivate,” he said.

Veerabhadrappa, from Chikka Korati in Bayala Narasapura gram panchayat, said: “Several families have cows enough to yield more than 50 litres of milk. What will they do with such a huge quantity of milk?”

Mehaboob Sab, panchayat development officer (PDO) of Bayala Narasapura GP, said, “We aren’t sure how the woman contracted Covid-19. A family member had visited Tamil Nadu and the woman also frequently visited a hospital in Kolar for checkups. We are still tracing her contacts.” 

The Karnataka BJP, which faced action on Twitter earlier this month over incendiary tweets, this time has passed the blame of Sangh Parivar sponsored Delhi violence to the victims.

In an insensitive tweet on Friday, it dubbed the protests against the notorious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as "fake" and added that the violence that followed was "the most well-planned assault on the Idea of India," in an apparent attempt to portray the victims as villains.

The handle, notorious for tweets targeting Muslims, blamed the clashes that erupted in Delhi between people demonstrating for and against the CAA on "so called 'Peacefuls'" - a known right-wing slur for Muslims.

ZERO - Number of Indians who lost their Citizenship due to the #CAA.

40+ - Number of Indians who lost their lives due to the #CAARiots.

The fake protests against CAA and subsequent riots by the so called Peacefuls are the most well planned assault on the "Idea of India."

— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) February 28, 2020

Many people on social media called out the tweet for misleading people and covering up the role of Delhi BJP leader Kapil Mishra's provocative speech for triggering the violence or the failure of the Delhi Police, which reports to the former BJP chief and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in controlling the riots.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka BJP had tweeted a video of Muslim women standing in queue to vote in the Delhi elections, showing their voter ID cards, with the snarky caption: "Keep the documents safe, you will need to show them again during NPR (National Population Register) exercise."

Soon after, the party unit's Twitter handle was blocked by the social media platform for 24 hours after many accused it of encouraging Islamophobia.

NPR has been widely criticised by opposition parties as a precursor to the government's planned NRC or National Register of Citizens which intends to make Indians prove their citizenship with documents that many poor or illiterate do not possess.

Many fear that combined with the already imposed CAA - which promises citizenship to only non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh - the NRC can be used to make millions of Muslims stateless.

The government has denied the allegation and said the CAA only intends to help those who have faced religious persecution. In recent weeks, it has gone back on its rhetoric on the NRC which was announced by Amit Shah in parliament as "it will certainly happen".

The CAA, which was cleared by parliament in December, has triggered deadly protests in the country which left at least 25 dead till Sunday. Since then, at least 42 more people have been killed as large-scale violence erupted in northeast Delhi and hundreds of homes and shops have been burned to the ground.