Lucknow: The father of a coronavirus infected woman from Agra has been booked under the 123-year-old Epidemic Act and relevant sections of the IPC by the Agra police for allegedly hiding the information regarding his daughter’s suspected infection which could be hazardous to public at large.
The 26-year-old woman in question and her husband were on their honeymoon in Europe and returned to Mumbai on March 7. They were cleared in the initial airport screening; the following day, they flew to Bengaluru.
From there, she flew to Delhi on March 8 evening and then boarded a train to reach Agra, her hometown, on March 9. Her engineer husband stayed back in Bengaluru where he works; he fell sick later and was tested Cvodi-19 positive on March 12.
Agra’s District Magistrate Prabhu Narain Singh told the media, “When the woman arrived from Bengaluru and we got to know that her husband was positive, we asked her to stay at home in isolation.
When our team went there on Friday, we were told she had left for Bengaluru via Delhi. Her father told me she had left on a train. When we sought the train details, the father said she was travelling by a general coach.
However, we put her phone on surveillance, and her location was found to be in Agra itself. I then sent a police team and she was found hiding in her house.”
This alleged misrepresentation of facts and concealment of truth has led to her father – a Senior Railway official – to face arrest and criminal prosecution under the Epidemic Act, the first such instance in the State.
The DM has asked the chief medical officer (CMO) to file an FIR against the woman’s father. Agra CMO Mukesh Vats said, “The woman had left for Agra from Bengaluru airport itself.
When we got the news that her husband had tested positive, we asked her and her paternal family to undergo tests. While the family was at the hospital giving samples, they complained of substandard facilities.
They were taken to isolation wards but went away. They were forcibly brought back after the police was sent to their home on March 13.”
The woman, whose preliminary tests were positive and has been in quarantine in the hospital since then, tested positive on Sunday. Her paternal family members, who tested negative, are in home quarantine.
