Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh. (Photo: Abid Bhat / KO)
Jammu- A day after a native of Srinagar who had a long travel history succumbed to COVID-19, Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh on Friday said efforts are on to trace all those people who came in contact with him so that they can be quarantined.
He appealed to people to voluntarily come forward and said hiding information could prove to be “fatal”.
“All those people this person met and places where he stayed are under threat. This needs to be understood,” the director general of police (DGP) said here.
Singh said efforts are being made to trace all such people and quarantine them to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The 65-year-old man hailed from Srinagar’s Hyderpora area. He died on Thursday, becoming the first fatality in Jammu and Kashmir due to coronavirus.
Singh said people should not take this death as a joke and instead view it as a “very serious threat”.
Sharing the sexagenarian’s travel history, the DGP said, “He had travelled from Deoband (in Uttar Pradesh) to Delhi and to Nizamuddin. From Nizamuddin he travelled to Samba (Jammu region) and stayed at a mosque. From there he went to Srinagar and from there to Bandipora (north Kashmir).”
“He travelled a long distance. Now all people have to be traced and quarantined,” he added.
So far, four people who came in contact with the maulvi in Bandipora have been identified, Singh said.
“They have tested positive (for COVID-19). The number of positive cases (in Jammu and Kashmir) was constant for a long period but has suddenly gone up with these people testing positive,” he said.
DGP said that nearly 1,200 people in Jammu and Kashmir, who hid their travel history to coronavirus-affected countries, have been identified and sent to quarantine facilities in the Union territory.
“Nearly 1,200 people who have travel history to affected countries have been identified at different places in J&K. They have been lifted from wherever they were and brought to quarantine. They have been put in official quarantine facilities,” he said.
The police and administration have launched a massive operation to track, trace and take these people to quarantine, he said.
“We have launched a massive operation to trace and shift people with travel history to the affected countries to quarantine. We have setup control rooms and appealed to people to give information about those people,” he said.
Singh said over 400 calls have been received about people who hid their travel history and escaped screening for coronavirus.
A batch of 300 police recruits has also been sent to a quarantine centre in Kathua after successfully completing the training process, he said.
A spacious quarantine centre has been setup in Kathua to send all travellers entering Jammu and Kashmir via Lakhanpur to quarantine.
The total number of coronavirus cases in the country rose to 724 on Friday. Till Thursday, Jammu and Kashmir had reported 13 COVID-19 cases, according to the Union Health Ministry.
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