Nobody can arrest me, says Ramdev in viral video amid tussle with IMA

In a 40-second-long video, which has since gone viral on social media, the yoga guru is seen challenging the authorities to arrest him.

A video clip of yoga guru Ramdev daring the authorities to arrest him is being widely circulated on social media after the Indian Medical Association demanded he be booked for sedition for spreading misinformation about modern medicine in treating coronavirus.

In the 40-second-long video, Ramdev is purportedly heard as saying, "Khair arrest to unka koi baap bhi nahi har sakta Swami Ramdev ko…lekin ek shor macha rahey hain...ki arrest Swami Ramdev…kabhi kuch chala detey hai….ki arrest Ramdev…Thug Ramdev…Kabi maha thug Ramdev…Kabi giraftaar Ramdev…chalate rahe hai..chalane do (No one's father can arrest Swami Ramdev…but they are making noise… arrest Ramdev, con Ramdev…sometimes they make arrest Ramdev trend…let them)."

Moneycontrol cannot independently verify the authenticity or the context of the clip that surfaced on May 26.

Read: IMA Uttarakhand sends Rs 1,000-crore defamation notice to Ramdev

The clip was shared hours after IMA, a voluntary body of doctors, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding that Ramdev be booked under sedition charges for alleged misinformation campaign on vaccination and challenging COVID-19 treatment protocols.

The apex medical body of doctors also served a defamation notice on Ramdev, demanding an apology from him within 15 days, failing which it said it will demand a compensation of Rs 1,000 crore from him.

Also read: Sunil Bansal, CEO of Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Dairies, dies of ‘COVID complications’

Ramdev was recently forced to withdraw a statement made in the viral video clip in which he questioned some of the medicines being used to treat the coronavirus infection and said "lakhs have died from taking allopathic medicines for COVID-19".

The remarks were met with vociferous protests following which Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan asked him to withdraw the "extremely unfortunate" statement.

A day after withdrawing the remarks, Ramdev posed 25 questions to the IMA in an 'open letter' on his Twitter handle, asking if allopathy offered permanent relief for ailments such as hypertension and type-1 and 2 diabetes.

He went on to list modern-day ailments such as Parkinson's disease and wondered if allopathy had any painless cure to treat infertility as well as to reverse ageing and increase haemoglobin.