BHOPAL: A father-son duo, among the seven men arrested on April 7 for attacking on-duty cops in a COVID-19 containment zone in Indore, has ended up transmitting the deadly infection to 20 persons. They include 17 inmates and two guards of the Indore Central Jail as also a trainee Indian Police Service (IPS) officer posted in Jabalpur.
The 17 inmates were among the 125 men of Indore Central Jail quarantined at the special quarantine centre in the OBC Hostel at Indore's Asrawad Khurd area.
Out of the 165 persons found to be positive in Indore on Monday night, 19 are from the Indore Central Jail and possibly contracted the disease from a Nasir Khan, among those arrested by the police in connection with the attack on a cop in the Chandan Nagar COVID containment zone on April 7.
Seven men, including Nasir alias Lallu Khan and son Javed Khan, were arrested by the cops on April 7 from Indore's Chandan Nagar area. Four of them, including Javed Khan, were booked under the National Security Act (NSA) and sent to Jabalpur and Satna Central Jails. The others including Nasir were lodged at the Indore Central and Indore District jails.
Shockingly, all seven of them were sent to various jails on August 8 by the Indore administration and police without being tested for COVID-19, despite all of them hailing from one of the containment zones.
According to the Indore Central Jail superintendent Rakesh Kumar Bhangre, "Nasir was brought to Indore Central Jail on April 8. As he hailed from a containment zone, instead of lodging him at the jail barracks with other inmates, we put him at the isolation ward in the jail. On April 10, we came to know that his NSA detainee son Javed had tested positive for the deadly virus, after which Nasir was shifted to MY Hospital in Indore on April 11. At the hospital, his COVID-19 test was done and the report came out positive on April 14. Since then Nasir is hospitalised."
Subsequently, all those inmates and jail staff who had come in contact with Nasir at the Indore Central Jail were quarantined at the special quarantine centre in Indore's outskirts.
"As many as 124 inmates of the jail, who had COVID-19 like symptoms were quarantined, and later tested for coronavirus. Out of them, 17 have tested positive on Monday night, while two jail guards who also came in contact with Nasir have tested positive. Another accused in the April 7 attack who was housed at Indore District Jail too has tested positive for the deadly virus," the Indore Central Jail superintendent added.
Meanwhile, Nasir's COVID-19 positive NSA detainee son Javed Khan, who escaped from Jabalpur Medical College Hospital on April 19, but was nabbed from adjoining Narsinghpur district the next day, has possibly transmitted the deadly infection to a 2017 trainee IPS officer. The officer was among the cops who had brought Javed back to Jabalpur on April 20.
Two other men against whom the NSA was invoked for the April 7 attack have already tested positive for the virus and are hospitalized in Bhopal.