As many as 23 migrant labourers, who had returned from Telangana, allegedly ran away from a COVID-19 quarantine centre in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, leaving the state health department jittery. According to reports, the incident happened on Thursday in Aranpur village in Dantewada district.
The labourers, who belonged to Nahadi village, ran away from a boys’ hostel which had been turned into a quarantine centre for migrant workers returning from various states, Superintendent of Police (SP) Abhishek Pallav told news agency ANI.
The migrant workers had arrived in the state on May 5 and 6. The quarantine centre was set up around 12 kilometres away from their native village.
“They reached Aranpur on Thursday and all of them were medically examined by the health team. Subsequently, they were kept in quarantine facility in a police station from where they escaped on Thursday night,” District Collector Topeshwar Verma told a national daily.
According to him, a total of 47 migrant labourers came back from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to Dantewada and were kept at a quarantine facility in Aranpur.
Verma said none of the labourers who escaped from the quarantine facility had showed any symptom of COVID-19.
No coronavirus case has been reported so far from the Maoist-infested Bastar region which includes seven districts—Bastar, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Sukma and Bijapur.