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With 7 more Covid-19 cases, Mohali count rises 26, the highest in Punjab
Two families of Jawarpur village in Dera Bassi, comprising members aged between 12 years and 50 years, test positive for coronavirus; accused of violating lockdown
Seven new Covid-19 positive cases were reported from Jawaharpur village of Dera Bassi in Mohali district on Tuesday, which has now become the new disease hotspot, taking the count in the district to 26, the highest in Punjab as well as the tricity.
On Tuesday, in what was the biggest daily spike in the tricity, where maximum six cases were reported on March 30, seven people from the same extended family tested positive. They included four family members of a village official, including his mother, aged 61, sister-in-law (brother’s wife), aged 35, and her children, aged 12 and 16.
With this, the count in the panch’s family has also gone up to eight as he was diagnosed with Covid-19 on April 3, and his father, brother and wife, tested positive on Monday.
The village head (sarpanch), aged 39, who also happens to be the panch’s cousin, her husband, aged 43, and daughter, 19, were also confirmed positive on Tuesday.
All of them have been admitted at Gian Sagar Hospital in Banur.
Till reports last came in, the village on the Ambala-Chandigarh highway remained sealed with Mohali deputy commissioner Girish Dayalan and civil surgeon Dr Manjit Singh and a health team camping there.
Dera Bassi sub divisional magistrate Kuldeep Bawa said contact tracing of others who came in contact with the two families was being done. “The panch owns a tent house and was in touch with eight labourers. It has been learnt that on March 31 he came in contact with a Muslim factory worker who is suspected of having met a Tablighi Jamaat attendee. Efforts are on to trace the factory worker.”
Three villages sealed, 118 samples taken
Besides Jawaharpur village in Dera Bassi, the district administration also sealed the neighbouring villages of Devigarh and Mehmudpur. In Jawaharpur, officials directed all the villagers to stay indoors until health department teams checked each and every household. About 522 homes were inspected with 2,460 people examined. A fire tender was also brought in to sanitise the village.
The health department took 118 samples on Tuesday of villagers in Jawaharpur who were in direct contact with the families of the panch and sarpanch. Four samples were also taken from Shakti Nagar in Dera Bassi where four close associates of the sarpanch live and sent to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research for further evaluation.
Panchayat members violated curfew, no checks on Markaz attendees
Jawaharpur, a nondescript village in Dera Bassi, which has turned into Punjab’s Covid-19 hotspot, could have been spared had the village sarpanch and panch not violated the curfew imposed in the state to prevent transmission of the disease. Officials could also have acted quickly to trace the source of the virus, say villagers.
Today, as 11 members of the two village officials’ families remain hospitalised after being diagnosed with Covid-19, other villagers are questioning why they defied the curfew to move around unrestricted and serve community meals to labourers and the poor.
Locals also blame officials, who they say failed to act in time to trace the primary source of the virus and retest the samples of 10 attendees of Tablighi Jamaat Markaz event at Nizamuddin in Delhi who stayed at the village’s mosque from March 19 to 29. They had tested negative in Delhi and Haryana earlier.
Dera Bassi sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Kuldeep Bawa said the 10 Markaz attendees were medically examined. Their samples taken in Haryana and Delhi had tested negative. When asked why their samples had not been taken, Bawa said the Jamaat issue was not in the spotlight when they were in the village.
When questioned how they left the village during the lockdown, he said they left during the exodus of the migrants and no passes had been issued to them.
The panchayat members and their families, local villagers say, did not follow precautions while socialising with others in the village. They also confronted others who objected to this.
The police visited Jawaharpur twice after the family members had altercations with other villagers, said a local, Balwinder Singh.
Another village resident, Sukhwinder Singh, also questioned why the samples of the 10 Markaz attendees were not taken.
The district administration, he alleged, was responsible for the spread of the virus in the village. Had the panchayat members’ social interactions been stopped the story would have been different, he said.
Congress leader Dhillon quarantined too
Congress incharge of Dera Bassi, Deepinder Singh Dhillon, who actively participated in distributing community meals with the sarpanch and panch in Jawaharpur village, was home quarantined on Tuesday at his residence in Chandigarh for 14 days.
Concerns over others getting infected grew as Dhillon was found to have held several political meetings in the past two weeks. He had reportedly come in contact with nearly 250 people. Dhillon’s samples were taken today and reports will come in tomorrow.
