E-Paper
Drama at Bengaluru station as 50 passengers refuse quarantine, will be sent back to Delhi
The protesting passengers said they were not told about the requirement to undergo 14-days of quarantine after arrival in Bengaluru
The first passenger train at Bengaluru railway station in nearly two months arrived with about 1000 passengers from New Delhi on Thursday and while the majority were screened and sent to 14-day quarantine to institutional facilities as per the SOP, 70 travellers created a ruckus refusing to be quarantined.
The train had left New Delhi at 9.30 pm on Tuesday and arrived at the Bengaluru station around 7.30 am on Thursday, late by nearly an hour. The Karnataka health department had set up ten health check-up counters and passengers were disembarked slowly bogie by bogie.
There was heavy deployment of Railway protection force at the station. The DC of Bangalore Urban district G L Shivamurthy said that rooms had been reserved in around 90 hotels near the Majestic railway station. Passengers willing to stay in the hotels had to bear the cost with varying tariffs (depending on facilities) while separate arrangements had been made for those who didn’t wish to stay in hotels. These people had to stay at institutional quarantine facilities at government hostels run by the social welfare department. About 15 BMTC buses were also arranged to ferry the passengers to their respective hotels taking into account social distancing and other hygiene factors.
However, about 50 passengers refused to be quarantined claiming that they had not been informed about the requirement. A video of them standing in a group and chanting ‘no quarantine’ went viral. After much discussion and attempts to convince them by the IGP (Railways) D Roopa failed, she requested the railways to attach an extra bogie and send back those who refuse to be quarantined if they were ready to pay for their tickets.
The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19
Karnataka’s primary and secondary education minister Suresh Kumar was clear that all passengers who come from another state must compulsorily be quarantined for a period of 14 days. “We have communicated this on SMS too, to all ticket holders. However, we understand that in this incident, those who were on the waitlist may have got seats and thus remained uninformed. We were able to convince some of them to go to institutional quarantine and the rest have chosen to go back.”
Those who refused to be quarantined are to be sent back on the Rajdhani Express which departs late on Thursday night.
