New Delhi, May 4 (IANS): Amid pandemic and targeting of the Muslim community by certain sections of the society and the media, Congress Treasurer Ahmed Patel has opened up and has questioned the "silence" of the National Human Rights Commission, an apex body on the human rights.

The Congress leader said on Monday that the NHRC's silence on the "Stigmatisation of a community" referring the blame of the spread of the COVID-19 attributed to the community by various quarters in the BJP and even by some chief ministers. However, he did not take the name of the Muslims, but he was apparently referring to the harassment of the Muslim vendors through various means.

Ahmed Patel said that it's "contrary" to the WHO guidelines.

The Tablighi Jamaat after the Nizamuddin fiasco has been blamed by a political party and the media for the spread of the virus and consequence to it the community has been stigmatised by the people. Even two BJP MLAs in Uttsr Pradesh have reportedly coaxed people not to buy vegetables from the Muslim vendors, and in Madhya Pradesh a poster was put out in a village that Muslim traders are not allowed. The MP government has taken action by loding an FIR, and the BJP unit in Uttar Pradesh has also issued a notice to the said MLA.

The AICC treasurer has also questioned the silence of the NHRC on the forced exodus of the poor migrants on foot.

He in his tweet said, "The near silence of the NHRC is surprising. Two major human rights abuses have occurred during this pandemic and we are yet to hear from this constitutional body -- Forced exodus of poor migrants on foot And Stigmatisation of a community contrary to WHO guidelines."

The Congress has been raising the issue of mass exodus during the lockdown and has alleged that it has brought suffering to people as it had been announced in haste without any strategy.

Sonia Gandhi in her statement on Monday said that the Central government barely gave a four-hour notice of the lockdown, workers and migrant labourers were denied the opportunity to return to their homes. "Post the partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred kilometres on foot - without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones," she said.