Madhya Pradesh: NSA detainee who tested positive for coronavirus flees hospital

Jabalpur SP Amit Singh told The Indian Express that the NSA detainee seems to have escaped from the isolation ward of NSCB government hospital when patients were being shifted.

Officers said he went missing between 2.30 pm and 3 pm. He is not visible in the CCTV footage accessed by the police.

Officers said they police initially thought he was hiding somewhere in the hospital. Guards on duty claimed they only saw staff wearing PPE kits enter the hospital. Police have not ruled out his escaping in a PPE kit.

The man’s posters have been put up and his photograph circulated on WhatsApp groups by the police.

Four police personnel have been suspended. The accused, and two of the four policemen, have been booked for offences under the IPC and the Disaster Management Act.

The man, along with three others, was detained under NSA for pelting stones and chasing a police constable trying to enforce lockdown in Indore on April 7. The constable had returned with reinforcement and arrested the people involved in the attack.

Of the four, two were taken to jail in Jabalpur and the other two in Satna.

The two accused kept in Satna jail have also tested positive for coronavirus.

The police team that accompanied the four from Indore to Jabalpur and Satna, and many guards and prisoners in Satna jail, have been quarantined and tested.