Police on Monday rescued 24 people, including 17 foreigners, from a Mosque in Hindpiri locality of the city and sent them to an isolation centre at Hotwar. The foreign nationals – from Malaysia, Britain, West Indies, Gambia, Holland and Bangladesh – were reportedly hiding at the place of worship in order to avoid being quarantined amid Coronavirus fear, police said.
Among the 17 foreigners rescued, eight belong to Malaysia, three Britain, two West Indies, two Gambia, and one each from Holland and Bangladesh, police personnel involved in the rescue operation said. The incident comes hardly a few days after 11 foreign nationals, including a few from China, were rescued from a Mosque in Suburban Ranchi’s Bundu subdivision – a finding that had put many places of worship across the State under scanner, police said.
“Acting on a tip off, we conducted the rescue operation post Sunday midnight. We are verifying the details of the rescued foreigners with the immigration office,” said Ranchi Superintendent of Police Saurav. “We can comment on the purpose behind their stay at the Mosque only after getting all the details from the immigration office,” he added.
At a time when the State has prohibited entry of travelers from other States and cancelled all passenger trains, buses and flights to and from Jharkhand, the incidents of foreign nationals taking refuge at different localities, especially places of worship, is a cause for concern, said sources in the Government. Such foreigners who have escaped the quarantine process and gone into hiding may carry the virus to Jharkhand – one of the few States in India that is yet to witness even a single case of COVID-19, they added.
The Government of India has imposed a complete prohibition on travel to India from foreign counties in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has wreaked havoc in some of the developed countries like the USA and Italy. The Government here has asked all travelers from other States to undergo the screening process and then be on home-quarantine if they are found asymptomatic.
The State Government had tested the samples of more than 200 suspects by the time this report was filed and none of them came out positive, officials from the National Health Mission (NHM) said. Besides, nearly 300 people occupied beds in isolation wards set up at different Government and private hospitals across Jharkhand by Monday, they added. While the State has been conducting regular screenings of people who have traveled to Jharkhand from other States in the past one month or so, many doctors and health activists have said that the screening process in place here has lapses that may lead to a large number of undetected cases of COVID-19.
