Tamil Nadu: 16 migrant workers jump quarantine to return home

Chennai: Two days before their quarantine period ended, 16 Covid positive migrant workers left Tirupur district to go to their native place in Jharkhand, police and health officials said

Chennai: Two days before their quarantine period ended, 16 Covid positive migrant workers left Tirupur district to go to their native place in Jharkhand, police and health officials said.

HT Image

The 16 infected patients left with a group of 36 other migrant workers and boarded a train on Monday night fearing a lockdown amid the Covid second wave. Tirupur health authorities have informed the state officials to alert their counterparts in Jharkhand so that co-passengers of the same train could be tracked.

Samples taken from the workers came back as positive on April 7. Their 14-day isolation period would have ended Wednesday. The workers were being treated at the government hospital and medical college in Tirupur for a week. “After being discharged they were asked to quarantine for another week but they escaped on the 5th day,” said Dr Jagadish Kumar, deputy director of health services of Tirupur. “They are unlikely to pose a risk as they’re all asymptomatic and have remained in quarantine except for two days but it is still a violation of protocol so we have registered a police complaint and informed the medical team in Jharkhand.”

The district police are likely to register a complaint under sections of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. “We have received the complaint today and we will be registering an FIR for Covid-19 violations,” said sub-inspector Sivaganesh. The workers were employed with a cotton mill at Vellakoil in Tirupur and were undergoing quarantine at the staff quarters at the mill. “Even the mill management was not aware that they had left,” he said.

As cases rise in Tamil Nadu and several restrictions have been imposed including a night curfew, migrant workers from different parts of the state are queuing up at railway stations to go home. The belt of Tirupur, Coimbatore and Erode in the western region of Tamil Nadu are dotted with industries and manufacturing factories and a major part of the workforce is formed by migrant workers, predominantly from Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar.