DW BUREAU / pathankot Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma and over 40 others have been booked for allegedly violating the COVID-19 guidelines, police said on Monday. Sharma and others have been accused of holding a political meeting at Ghartholi Mohalla on Sunday here. They have been booked under the relevant sections of the IPC, the Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Diseases Act, the said.Photos of the political meeting went viral on social media, police said. SHO Mandeep Salgotra said that Vicky Rampal, an aide of Ashwani Sharma, had allegedly organised the political meeting at his ward in violation of the COVID-19 guidelines.However, the chief of the Punjab unit of BJP dubbed the registration of case against him and party workers a "desperate move" of the ruling Congress to "muffle the voice of justice." In a statement here, Sharma said the BJP workers were being implicated in "false cases" as they were raising voice against the Amarinder Singh government over the issues of alleged corruption and liquor mafia in the state. India's COVID-19 case tally crossed 48 lakh with 92,071 new infections being reported in a day, while over 37.8 lakh people have recuperated taking the national recovery rate to 78 per cent on Monday, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The total coronavirus cases mounted to 48,46,427, while the death toll climbed to 79,722 with 1,136 more people succumbing to the infection in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed. The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the coronavirus infection has further dropped to 1.64 per cent. There are 9,86,598 active cases of COVID-19 in the country, while 37,80,107 people have recovered, the data stated. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and it went past 40 lakh on September 5. According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 5,72,39,428 samples have been tested up to September 13 with 9,78,500 samples being tested on Sunday. Of the 1,136 fresh deaths, 416 were reported from Maharashtra. (editor@dailyworld.in)