New Delhi: A writ petition has been filed in the Supreme Court by three lawyer activists under Article 32 of the constitution seeking directions to the Union Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Home Affairs to issue guidelines for “preventing the attacks, stigmatisation and boycott of members of certain communities” in view of the discrimination that has followed the COVID-19 spread.The petition, filed by Aanchal Singh, Disha Wadekar and Mohammad Wasim, stated that these guidelines for protecting these communities should be in line with the “addressing social stigma associated with COVID-19” guidelines which were issued by the MoHFW on April 9.The petition urged issuance of these guidelines, “so as to ensure nobody is denied access to food, water, healthcare, medicine and hygiene facilities and therefore access to shops, wells, tanks, places of public resort on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.”It said these guidelines should be strictly followed by all the states and Union Territories to curb the spread of fake news leading to social stigmatisation, boycott of certain communities and communal disharmony.Further, the plea urged for instructions to the respondents to “advertise on multimedia platforms like television, radio, print media that the spread of novel COVID-19 cannot be attributed to any community and to make a call for social harmony and national integrity in these pressing times”. It said they should also “direct the District Collectors to pass orders in their respective districts that addressing concerns of social stigma, labelling and boycott wile dealing with COVID-19, including penal actions”.Also read: 101 Former Civil Servants Write to State CMs on Continued Harassment of MuslimsNoting that “existing social schisms in society are widened during crisis situations like that of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic,” the petition said “this renders the already vulnerable population of race, religious, caste and sexual minorities, etc. to even greater threat of being socially boycotted and ostracised resulting in essential services including healthcare inaccessible to them.”Making a reference to several recent incidents, it said, “since the outbreak of this pandemic these social schisms have been blatantly visible.” The petition went on to state that “since the coronavirus spread from Wuhan in China, associating people from north-eastern hill regions of India with COVID-19 has become a common phenomena because of the morphological similarities of such Indian citizens to the Han Chinese, in that both belong to Tibeto-Burman ethnicity.”Similarly, it stated that “since the Tablighis from Nizamuddin Markaz turned out to be ‘super-spreaders’, incidents of fake news and hate messages leading to the maligning of Muslim community and suspicion against them has been on the rise.”Pointing out that “such super-spreader events have happened across all countries and within India”, the plea said “the phenomena is not community-specific, but the fake news and hate messages claiming so have reignited the prevalent biases and prejudices.”This, it said, has also led to social boycott such as throwing out tenants, boycotting shops, vendors as well as denial of essential services, including healthcare, to members of the aforesaid communities.“Such social boycotts also carry the consequence of loss of livelihood for members of these communities. There is also reasonable apprehension that similarly placed vulnerable groups and communities may become the victims of such social prejudices, stereotypes and discrimination.”Stating that “this kind of social boycott on the grounds ‘only’ of religion, race, caste, sex, etc is discriminatory and hence erodes the protection granted under Article 14 of the constitution of India,” the petition urged the apex court to issue “appropriate order or directions” for preventing such social boycott and denial of essential services to members of certain communities.