BHOPAL: A 30-year-old Coronavirus positive National Security Act (NSA) detainee Javed Khan, who escaped from an isolated ward of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College Hospital in Jabalpur on Sunday afternoon, was arrested from the border of adjoining Narsinghpur and Raisen district in wee hours on Monday.
After escaping from the hospital at around 3 pm on Sunday, the detainee, hailing from Indore, took a lift from a truck in Jabalpur outskirts and reached Narsinghpur from where he was trying to flee to Indore on a motorcycle. However, alert cops foiled his escape plans and arrested him at Narsinghpur-Raisen border police check-post (around 80 km from Jabalpur) in the wee hours on Monday.
"The alert cops of Narsinghpur district, who nabbed Javed will get the Rs 65,000 reward, including Rs 50,000 bounty declared by the DGP MP and Rs 15,000 bounty announced by the Jabalpur Jewelers and Goldsmith Association," Jabalpur district SP Amit Singh told The New Indian Express, while confirming Javed’s arrest.
Meanwhile, primary investigations have revealed the possible complicity of a security guard and ward boy of the Medical College Hospital with Javed Khan in executing his plans to escape from the isolated ward of the hospital.
Ongoing probe has also brought to the fore that another COVID-19 positive patient admitted at the same hospital had helped Javed make, not one, but six phone calls to his contacts over the last few days for planning and executing the escape plan. "We’re investigating the escape from all angles and all those found wanting and party to the crime too will be booked by Jabalpur Police in the matter," Singh added.
Four police constables from whose custody Javed had escaped have already been suspended. Importantly, Javed was being treated at an isolated ward of the hospital since April 11.
On Sunday afternoon, other coronavirus positive patients under treatment at the same hospital were being shifted from one ward to another, when Javed slipped away from his isolated ward, despite security guards having been deployed to keep an eye on him.
Javed was among the four men against whom NSA was invoked on April 8 after they were arrested for attacking an on duty police constable in Chandan Nagar COVID-19 containment zone of Indore on April 7.
While two of them, including Javed were sent to Jabalpur Central Jail on April 9, two others were sent to Satna Central Jail. Out of the four men, three have so far tested positive for the COVID-19 infection. While Javed was admitted at the hospital in Jabalpur, the two other Coronavirus positive NSA detainees who were sent to Satna Central Jail are under treatment at a private hospital in Bhopal.