Five Covid patients booked for skipping home quarantine

Five people, who had tested positive for Covid-19, were booked for allegedly violating quarantine protocols and leaving home isolation, thereby potentially threatening the spread of the infection in Molahera sector 22, the police said on Thursday. Police said preliminary probe has found that all the patients hailed from Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh and had gone back to their respective homes. Police teams are currently trying to trace their whereabouts.

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According to the police, the incident was reported to them by the health department on August 2 when officials had gone to the area for an inspection and did not find the Covid-19 positive patients at the given address.

Police said that on July 28, one person had tested positive for Covid-19 and was advised home isolation. Over the next three days, the samples of four other tenants, aged 26, 47, 22 and 24 respectively, in the same building were taken,who positive for the virus on August 2.

Police said after the patients were not found at the given address, the officials tried to contact them on their mobile phones. Some of them had shared only Aadhaar card numbers and not full details of their respective hometowns, following which the landlord was questioned.

Vikash Bhola, station house officer (SHO), Palam Vihar police station, said, “We are trying to trace them. It has been found that they were from Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh and had returned there in a vehicle. Two of the patients have negative reports and we have sought clarity from the health department. There was some complicity from their landlord in helping them escape and hence he too has been booked.”

A case was registered against the accused persons under sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule), 120-B (criminal conspicracy) of Indian Penal Code and section 51 (b) of the Disaster Management Act at Palam Vihar police station on Wednesday.