Indore: One among the four persons booked under NSA and sent to Jabalpur jail for attacking police and Nagar Suraksha Samiti members in Chandan Nagar area, tested positive to coronavirus on Saturday, officials said.
Health department sources said that their samples were taken in Jabalpur before they were sent to jail there, whereas it should have been taken after their arrest in Indore, showing gross negligence on part of local police in Indore. Health department officials said that the police did not inform the police about their arrest. "Since Chandan Nagar area was part of the containment area the police should have been alert to the possibility that they might have contracted coronavirus," an official of the health department said, adding that now a large number of people have been exposed, which could have been prevented.
Six people were arrested by the police from Chandu Wala Road area in Chandan Nagar area a couple of days ago. They were involved in thrashing a policeman and pelting stones on the member of Nagar Suraksha Samiti. Among the six arrested, four were booked under NSA by the district magistrate. Two of the accused were sent to Jabalpur Jain while two others were sent to Satna jail.
Chandan agar police station in-charge Yogesh Singh Tomar said that the four accused were taken to the jails in Jabalpur and Satna by seven policemen from DRP Lines Indore. Tomar said that the accused had been screened in Indore and at that time there were no symptoms and they were sent to Jabalpur and Satna.
However, DIG jail, Jabalpur refused to allow one of the accused into the Jabalpur Central Jail when he exhibited symptoms of coronavirus on Friday. He promptly informed the district collector and health department in Jabalpur and both were tested at a hospital in Jabalpur where they were kept in isolation. The test reports came on Saturday and while one of them tested positive, the other's report came negative, but he is still being kept in isolation as a precaution. Health officials said that it was the alertness of Jabalpur Central Jail DIG that saved the inmates and staff of the Central Jail from contracting the deadly infection.
TI Tomar said seven policemen from DRP Lines who took the accused to Jabalpur and 10 policemen from Chandan Nagar police station were sent to home quarantine and this information was shared with the health department. The father of the accused who has tested positive is also in jail in Indore and the jail authorities have kept him in isolation, Tomar added.
