Five Enforcement Directorate (ED) employees, including a special director rank officer, have tested positive for Covid-19, following which the headquarters of the Central anti-money laundering agency has been sealed for 48 hours till Monday.
Out of the five infected personnel, two persons are contract employees. The employees were found infected after the ED carried out section-wise testing at its headquarters in the wake of some Covid-19 cases being reported from other floors of the Lok Nayak Bhawan in the upscale Khan Market area here, where the agency office is located, the officials said on Saturday
All the ED employees who were found infected with the pandemic after "proactive testing" are asymptomatic, officials said.
The employees who have tested positive include a special director rank officer and an investigating officer. All of them have been admitted to isolation facilities at a designated hospital for treatment.
After detailed contact tracing, people who came in contact with the infected personnel have been quarantined.
As per procedure, the headquarters of the agency have been sealed for 48 hours and are expected to resume operations on Monday, the officials said.
The affected employees have not been coming to office since they tested positive, they said.
In order to check the spread of the viral infection, a protocol has been put in place for sanitising the ED headquarters twice a week and all documents. “Daak” (post) is sanitised before it is handed over to officers and other staff of the agency, they added.
An ED employee had tested positive for Covid-19 in May also.
The ED is the federal agency mandated to probe money laundering, black money and hawala crimes under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Earlier, headquarters of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Border Security Force (BSF) located at the CGO Complex here were sealed after detection of Covid positive cases in the respective Forces’ ranks.