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Journalism of Courage
Hours after a 50-year-old man, who had tested positive for coronavirus, was booked in Meerut for allegedly disobeying quarantine rule, police dropped the charges against him. The man, his 40-year-old wife and three brothers-in-law have also tested positive for COVID-19.
“The FIR should not have been lodged in this connection. I will take an appropriate action,” Senior Superintendent of Police (Meerut) Ajay Sahni told The Indian Express.
A day after the man — who had come to his in-laws’ place in Meerut from Maharashtra’s Amravati — tested positive for coronavirus, he was booked under IPC sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) besides section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act.
However, police did not clarify when the 50-year-old man, who reached Meerut on March 19, was told to go under quarantine.
Ashutosh Singh, in-charge of Nauchandi Police Station where the FIR was lodged, said that on investigation they did not find any evidence that the patient had violated any rule .
“The patient did not know that mild fever could be symptoms of caronavirus. He did come to know about the disease after being admitted to the Meerut Medical College on March 26,” said Singh.
He also claimed that the FIR was lodged on behalf of Shastri Nagar police post in-charge Mahendra Sharma.”The FIR now stands expunged as per our records,” said Singh.
The man had come to Meerut from Maharashtra by train on March 19 and was admitted to a hospital on March 26 following fever and acute respiratory problem.
“Till March 24, I was fine. My condition deteriorated after that as I faced difficulty in breathing, and got admitted to a hospital on March 26. I run a crockery shop in Amravati and may have come into contact with a positive victim there,” a doctor at Lala Lajpat Rai Medical (LLRM) College, where the 50-year-old has been admitted, quoted him as saying.
Meerut District Magistrate Anil Dhingra, meanwhile, said that movement of people has been banned in areas where the infected man had visited in the past one week before being admitted to a hospital.
“Three sectors of Shastri Nagar in Meerut where his in-laws stay and two streets in Lisadi Gate area where he visited have been sealed till March 30. Around 50 people who may have come in contact with him have been admitted to hospital for isolation and monitoring. We cannot take any risk at this juncture,” said Dhingra.
Chief Medical Officer (Meerut) Rajkumar said of the 50 people kept in isolation, 31 have tested negative, four positive, while the results of the remaining samples are yet to come.
Since the man had also offered namaz at two mosques, the health officials are also trying to track people who may have come in contact with him.
“We are trying to reach everyone with whom this man may have come in contact with. A total of 110 teams from the Health Department have been pressed into service for this massive exercise,” said Rajkumar.
In neighbouring Bulandshahr, the administration has put up a COVID-19 poster outside the native place of the affected man in Khurja and all the seven members of the family living there have been kept in isolation. “We have inputs that relatives of the 50-year-old man in his native place in Khurja had attended a wedding in Meerut where they could have come in contact with him,” said K N Tiwari, Chief Medical Officer of Bulandshahr.
