COVID-19 patient who escaped from isolation centre caught

A 40-year-old COVID-19 patient,

who had fled from an isolation centre in Madhya Pradesh's Indore city last week along with seven others, has been caught, police said on Monday.

He was among eight COVID-19-infected persons who had fled from the isolation centre. The seven others have already been caught from different places in the state.

Kishanganj police station in-charge Shashikant Chaurasia told PTI on Monday that the 40-year-old COVID-19- infected man was caught on Sunday at a toll booth on the Agra-Mumbai Highway during a routine checking.

Police were intercepting people trying to move out of Indore district in violation of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, he said.

 

"The COVID-19 patient, who had fled from an isolation centre in Indore, took lift from a motorcycle rider and was going towards the Manpur area.

"He told the motorcycle rider he came to Indore to raise fund for a madarsa before the implementation of the nationwide lockdown and got stuck here," Chaurasia said.

"Initially, the COVID-19-infected person did not tell us the truth. Later he confessed that he was among the eight people who fled on Wednesday last from an isolation centre in Indore. According to his Aadhaar card, he hails from Lucknow," the police officer said.

Chaurasia said, "The person told us that he and others had fled from the isolation centre out of fear."

The police officer said the motorcycle rider, a resident of Manpur, was allowed to go home after he produced medical documents so show he had gone to a doctor for psychiatric treatment.

He said samples of the motorcycle rider and his family members will be collected and tested for coronavirus.

According to police officials, three of the escapees were caught in Indore and admitted to a private hospital. Four others were apprehended on Thursday in Morena district, about 550km from Indore.

The officials said all these people originally hail from Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and had come to Indore for business purpose before the nationwide lockdown was announced late last month.