COVID-19: Punjab tracks 73 out of over 200 Nizamuddin returnees, prohibits all gatherings

Punjab government on Thursday claimed to have tracked 73 persons who returned from Delhi after attending Tablighi Jamaat organised at Nizamuddin in Delhi. The government has also prohibited all gatherings, including religious, in the state. The government is likely to impose a total ban on all congregations, irrespective of the religion involved.

According to an official spokesperson, Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh has said that he would personally talk to the Acting Jathedar of the Akal Takht and also directed the Chief Secretary to discuss the matter with the SGPC in view of the upcoming Baisakhi festival.

The Chief Minister also ordered 21 days of quarantine for all those who had returned to the state from Nizamuddin since January this year, and asked the police and administrative officials to move aggressively to track, trace and isolate all such people.

He directed the police and health department to constitute special teams to track and follow up on those who had returned to Punjab from Nizamuddin.

According to DGP Dinkar Gupta, some 200 persons from Punjab had visited Nizamuddin and returned here at different times, with 12 districts believed to be affected.

They were being tracked, along with some from others states who had arrived in Punjab for Tablighi Jamaat work. The Health Department was debriefing and contact tracing them, though so far, no Corona confirmed cases had come to light from the returnees.

According to Principal Secretary, Health, the department had so far received a list of 125 of these persons, of whom 73 had been tracked and samples collected in 25 cases some of whom had come to Mansa as late as March 19. As a precautionary measure, all of them had been placed in quarantine, he added.

As many as 31 people who had returned from Nizamuddin had been quarantined in Kapurthala district. The returnees had been found asymptomatic so far. In Patiala, too, 29 of them had been quarantined but there were no symptoms shown by them. In Sangrur the police had tracked and collected samples of all the attendees whose names were received, and the incubation period had ended in most cases already.

The CM also ordered quarantining of the Pakistani nationals who were in Amritsar, saying the state could not afford to take any chances at this critical juncture.

In Amritsar certain medical students from Jammu and Kashmir have also been stranded due to the lockdown even though they had completed their quarantine period.

The government has also quarantined the families of Hazuri Ragi Padma Shri Bhai Nirmal Singh ji, who passed away today due to the deadly virus on Thursday.

Those who had come in contact with him at a wedding he attended in Moga have also been quarantined though they were found to be asymptomatic, the health secretary informed.