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Case against Ceasefire: Police may seek arrest warrant against firm’s MD over Covid-19 spread
Noida:
Noida:
The Gautam Budh Nagar police will soon be going to produce all the evidences against fire safety solutions company Ceasefire -- the super spreader of Coronavirus in the district -- and its top management in the court. Officials said that they want to get an arrest warrant before taking action against the managing director of the Sector 135-based company.
The police have swung into action after all the 42 Covid-19 patients having direct or indirect links with Ceasefire in the district got discharged. The 42 persons included the company’s managing director (MD), employees, their family members and domestic helps.
“We are collecting evidence against the Ceasefire company and its officials responsible for the spread of Covid-19 in the district. We will be producing all the evidences in the court first before approaching the MD. We want to get an arrest warrant before reaching out to him. He has now been discharged from the hospital and is about to complete his quarantine period,” said Sankalp Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Zone 1.
The managing director of Ceasefire had returned from the UK on March 1 and another employee had returned on March 7 from there. Then the company’s auditor from London visited its Noida office in the third week of March. All the three persons jumped their quarantine period and were attending office which led to spread of the deadly virus among other employees and then to their family members, the officials said.
In the Ceasefire trail, the first positive case was reported on March 24 when the wife of an employee was found positive for Coronavirus.
On March 29, the Expressway police had lodged an FIR against Ceasefire under sections 45 (punishment of offences committed within India), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was lodged on the orders of then chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Anurag Bhargava for hiding the foreign travel history by a few employees of the firm.
The police will also be recording statements of the employees who had contracted the infection at the Sector 135 office. “We are expecting that in another one week, we will be able to take action against the company officials. We will be soon approaching the court in the matter,” said the DCP.
Calls and text messages to the managing director of the company elicited no response on Monday.
The last patient from the Ceasefire trail was discharged on May 1 after staying in the hospital for around 36 days. The 39-year-old had developed Covid-19 pneumonia following which it took so long for him to get discharged, health officials said.
The health officials had to put 1,000 people on surveillance who had direct or indirect links with the Ceasefire company during the contact tracing process. Ceasefire was the first cluster of Covid-19 infection in the district.
In March, the district administration and the health department had failed to check the Covid-19 spread in its nascent stages. Thus the Ceasefire company and the cases linked to it became the root cause for the transfer of then district magistrate BN Singh and CMO Bhargava.
