BENGALURU: A gazetted woman railway employee has put many other officers of the South Western Railway Zone and possibly several hundred members of the public at risk by quietly checking in her 25-year-old son, who returned to Bengaluru from Germany via Spain, at an Officers Rest House (ORH) near the KSR Railway Station on March 13. It remains a mystery why she did not take him to their house at Kathriguppe.
After his condition deteriorated, the individual, who runs a start-up in Bengaluru, called up an ambulance and went to a hospital on Tuesday night. He has tested positive for COVID-19 at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Disease (RGICD) on Wednesday and is among the three new cases in the state. The Railways is now shutting the rest house while the BBMP got busy fumigating it as well as alerting all officers who stayed in the guest house.
What is adding to the panic across the Divisional Railway Manager’s office is that Nagalatha Guruprasad, an Assistant Personnel Officer (Traffic) in the Personnel department of the Bengaluru Division, had been reporting for work since March 13 despite being in contact with her son. She stopped atteding work only from Tuesday.
A top railway official was furious. “Can you imagine how many people he could have come in contact with while going out for food or while simply whiling away time in and around the railway station? This is totally irresponsible behaviour by the family, unmindful of the welfare of others. The mother appears to have ensured her family was safe while putting others at risk,” he alleged.
‘Maples’ Rest House, with 17 rooms, is located in a small lane just next to the Passenger Reservation Office of the station. Nagalatha’s son was accommodated in Room No. 14 on the second floor after the mother and son landed with his baggage here on March 13. Nearly 40 people have stayed in the guest house on various dates between March 13 and March 17, it is learnt through reliable sources.
TNIE has also learnt that cleaning staff, railway employees as well as co-occupants of the guest house, many of them top officers or their family members, were tense after news broke out earlier in the day. Across Maples is another rest house with eight rooms, referred to as the Main ORH, but it is said to be relatively safe as he did not enter this place.
The sources said that the man did not ask for food to be brought to his room nor did he ask for any cleaning to be done in the room during his four-day stay here. “He used to go to the nearby Balaji Restaurant for food. He was not interacting much with others. In fact, on Tuesday evening, he was found sitting on the steps of the guest house. He was unable to walk to his room due to weakness and he later called an ambulance,” the source.
One of the cleaning staffers told TNIE very emotionally, “I know he asked for water many times and it was given by staffers working there. None of us know if any of us have contracted the Coronavirus from him now.” The individual’s younger brother, an engineering student, visited the guest house on Wednesday evening to collect his belongings.
He claimed, “None of us knew about his condition. There is nothing to worry about. He was in complete quarantine. In fact, food was placed outside the door of the room where he stayed.” But he could not give details of who placed the food outside the room. He confirmed that his brother had tested positive in the preliminary tests released on Wednesday. Divisional Railway Manager A K Verma said that no one in the Bengaluru Railway Division knew anything about the health condition of the individual staying in the guest house. Nagalatha has put in 25 years of service in the Railways. She joined as a Class-C employee and was promoted as a Class-B officer (Junior officer rank) three years ago.