'China created COVID-19 bioweapon to cause destruction worldwide': Ex-DGHS seeks NIA probe

Former Director-General of Health Services, Dr Jagdish Prasad moved a petition in a special NIA court on Tuesday, seeking a central investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak. 

In his plea, the Padma Shree Awardee has sought directions to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), to register an FIR and launch a probe into the outbreak of the virus that has caused a global pandemic. Supporting the Wuhan lab leak theory, Dr Prasad claimed that the deadly virus was developed in China artificially, as a 'biological weapon.'

"SARS-CoV-2, which has its origins in China, has been deliberately artificially created as a biological weapon as part of a conspiracy to cause substantiate human and economic loss in India as well as the world," the plea stated. 

Dr Prasad further noted that the normal life of every Indian citizen has been adversely affected and the supply of essential items has been disrupted all over the country since the outbreak of the pandemic. "All this has been a result of a possible deliberate conspiracy by state or non-state actors in China, as part of a coordinated creation and transmission of the virus," he said. 

The first case of COVID-19 was reported in China's Wuhan province in December 2019 before spreading across the globe. While some experts believe that the virus jumped to humans from animals, others support the lab leak theory citing the genetic combination of the pathogen may have caused the pandemic.

Row over COVID-19 origin

The petition from the ex-DGHS comes amid a global call for a second phase investigation into the Coronavirus origin in China. World Health Organisation chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had recently asked China to be more open about the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the Vice President of China's National Health Commission, Zeng Yixin, objected to the origin tracing and called it unacceptable. Chinese experts have called on the UN health agency to expand the origin-tracing efforts beyond China onto other nations. 

China's rejection of the WHO's proposal indicated a stumbling block in the painstaking global effort to determine the origin of COVID-19. The virus has taken the lives of four million people worldwide.