A native of Assam who fled the quarantine in Kerala was traced and caught at Bongaigaon railway station in Assam and quarantined at the isolation ward of the railway hospital. The man was travelling back to his home in Assam via Chennai.
Two other suspects of coronavirus who were quarantined by the Kerala health authorities at the hotel in Kozikhod also fled from the facility on 16 March. They are natives of West Bengal and Odisha.
NF Railway Chief PRO Subhanan Chanda said, “Railway Protection force of NFR successfully traced out the person from train number 13175 Kanchanjunga Express. He has fled the quarantine centre at Kerala. RPF on getting information from additional SP of Marigaon district that a person belonging to that district jumped quarantine at Kerala, swung into action immediately.”
As per reports, the RPF led by Inspector Pavan Kumar along with the train escort party and strike force and the commercial department team conducted a massive search of the Kanchanjunga Express when the train arrived platform number 3 in the new Bongaigaon station at 12:53 am.
Chief Public Relations Officer(CPRO) said, “Finally the searching team was able to locate Sariful Islam aged about 24 years from Mikirgaon village of Lahorighat in Morigaon District of Assam from inside the general coach number-ER-14425. On interrogation he accepted that he fled from the quarantine centre at Kerala and travelled by the train from Parak to Chennai and from Chennai to Howrah by Howrah mail. From Sealdah, the person was travelling by the Sealdah-Silchar Kanchanjunga express and was supposed to get down at Guwahati station for going to Morigaon.”
The CPRO further added, “He was immediately detrained from the coach at new Bongaigaon. Later on, the Medical team of Railway hospital of new Bongaigaon attended and conducted screening tests of the person and was later shifted to railway hospital.”
The man is now under observation of RPF and GRP personnel so that he can be prevented from fleeing again. All the passengers of the respective coach in which the absconder travelled, were medically screened by railway doctors before the train left and all of them are advised to go under home quarantine as per norms.
