An entire village is on the edge after Kashmir records its first COVID-19 death

It is half past eleven in the morning and the local residents in the idyllic village of Hajin, some 35 kms towards north of Srinagar, are sitting indoors as part of the lockdown being observed to stave off the community transmission of Covid-19. However, much fear is palpable among the local populace after four fresh positive coronavirus cases were reported from the village. And the Valley logged its first Covid-19 death.

On Thursday morning, a 65-year-old man lost his life after battling the disease for a few days at a Srinagar hospital.

The deceased, a well-heeled resident of Hyderpora, Srinagar, and the four positive cases reported from the village have a direct and clear link.

All the four had travelled to Delhi to participate in a Tablighi congregation held at Nizamuddin Markaz Masjid, where they met the deceased.

They had left for Delhi on March 11 and were home after a week.

The congregation was attended by many members of Tablighi Jamaat, a global Islamic organisation believing in popularising and propagating the concept of inner reform, hailing from several other countries.

While the deceased tested positive on Tuesday for Covid-19, the other four were declared for having contracted the disease a day later.

"Police is all over the streets here and sealed off a passage to the village with barbed wires," said Mohammad Ishfaq, a local resident of Hajin.

"We are very much petrified and many are getting antsy".

The entire locality is filled with fear and there has been widespread panic buying. The residents say that they have genuine reasons for being fearful as the four positive Covid-19 residents have made a plethora of social contacts ever since they returned from Delhi.

A couple of days after their return, they organised a small congregation inside a local masjid while they met more people. They also, according to the local residents, attended a grief meet in the village.

"They have shaken hands or hugged with dozens of residents in the locality. I also met one of them a few days ago," a distraught local resident told Asiaville while declining to be named in this report.

The local residents have now made a beeline for a nearby medical facility to get themselves screened for the deadly disease.

A senior doctor at the facility said that they had quarantined the families of all the four Covid-19 positive persons and had constituted a team to trace their contacts in the Village.

There is more to the story. Sources in Tablighi Jamaat said that people from well-nigh every district of the Valley had attended the congregation in Delhi and the deceased had visited multiple religious places before he tested positive.

According to many Srinagar residents, most of the Tablighi Jamaat members who recently showed up in the Valley after attending various congregations in and outside country have not divulged their travel details, putting an entire population on the line.

Kashmir Ulema Council, a religious body headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has also exhorted upon the people to voluntarily reveal their travel history before the authorities.

Over 400 complaints were received by the police about the people who had kept their travel histories under wraps thus far. Most of these complainants vetted by the police were found true.

The greatest concern at the moment is the crumbling health care sector of the Valley with nearly no sophisticated private hospital available in the region. The critical health facilities here are few and far between. There are less than 100 ventilators available in key government-run hospitals for a population of at least 7 million people. Most of the hospitals in rural areas are shorthanded and these understaffed facilities, on any given day, have to grapple with a huge inflow of patients.

Under such circumstances, it would be difficult to handle the ballooning number of Covid-19 cases.

After the deceased Tablighi preacher tested positive, the number of such cases in Jammu and Kashmir went up to 11.

A total number of 5124 persons have been kept under observation while 3061 are home quarantined.

Of 326 samples, 294 were tested negative while the reports of 21 samples are awaited.

While the authorities are making every effort to trace the contacts of deceased, many home quarantined residents in Hajin village are watching for symptoms.