Chhattarpur (MP), Raj Nagar sub-divisional magistrate Swapnil Wankhede ordered 47 quarantined persons to be locked up in their houses for 12 hours on Friday as they kept stepping out in defiance of his orders.

While the incident at Raj Nagar Tehsil, 55 kms from Chhatarpur district headquarters afforded former chief minister Kamal Nath an opportunity to criticise the ruling dispensation, the state government showed no urgency to act against the SDM.

Wankhede said the administration was compelled to take the drastic action as these 47 persons had frequently breached the quarantine.

"These people were permitted to go out of the tehsil for emergency like attending funerals and for medical care after March 25. After they returned from corona-affected places Indore and Bhopal, they were placed under quarantine. But they kept venturing out of homes and loitered on the roads, forcing us to lock them up to check the spread of pandemic," the SDM said.

"I got the information about 47 persons having been locked up in Rajgarh and Khajuraho to enforce lockdown", former MP chief minister Kamal Nath tweeted. This move is arbitrary, oppressive and inhuman", his tweet read.