COVID-19: AMU scholars who escaped quarantine traced in Kashmir

AMU (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Team Careers360 | March 21, 2020 | 01:56 PM IST

NEW DELHI: The Jammu and Kashmir Police has traced in Kashmir three out of four PhD students who had allegedly absconded from the quarantine centre at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), say reports.

The official sources told The Tribune that the three research students, two hailing from north Kashmir and one from south Kashmir, would now be shifted back to a quarantine facility. The fourth scholar who escaped from the quarantine centre in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, has still not been traced.

Earlier, the university was alerted by central health agencies that the three PhD students who had recently returned from the UAE were missing from the isolation ward in a Uttar Pradesh city where they had been quarantined. Local medical authorities had also offered help to AMU with finding them.

Tracing them

Following this, the medical authorities in Kashmir traced the students in their native villages in Anatnag and Baramulla in Kashmir. The officials told The Tribune that the students have been located and the medical teams have been sent to examine and quarantine them.

On 19 March, Dr Shariq Ali, Chief Medical Officer at AMU, wrote to the Dean Students’ Welfare, AMU, that the three Kashmiri students - Azad Ahmad Wani, Mohammad Iqbal Rather (PhD scholars in AEBM) and Bilal Ahmad Rather (PhD scholar in botany) who had visited UAE from March 4-9, 2020 and had been admitted to the UHS Isolation Ward at 4:00 pm on March 18 for quarantine were absconding since 9:45 pm on March 18.

The officials at airports in Srinagar and Jammu and the Jammu railway station had been alerted to check the identities of all incoming passengers and detain the three students, should they arrive at either the airport or station, for necessary quarantine.

The Indo-Asian News Service reported that the police was alert about their movement to Kashmir from Aligarh. "The scholar from Anatnag was taken away by police just an hour after he reached his home at 3 a.m.," Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Anantnag Sandeep Chaudhary Choudhary told IANS.

However, there are some reports that indicate that the three had voluntarily gone to a hospital and then to the local police station in Baramulla. Allegedly, the three students had left AMU due to the lack of facilities. They reached Kashmir on the night of March 20 and went to the hospital early the next morning.

Contact tracing

Officials are now trying to trace the individuals with whom the three students might have come into contact during their journey from Aligarh to Kashmir.

Under the prescribed protocol to contain the spread of coronavirus, travellers returning from the UAE have to complete the quarantine period of 14 days. The three researchers may invite action for violating protocol.

The authorities at Srinagar will continue with necessary restrictions to ensure safety and well being of the people in the district.

India has seen a total of 258 COVID-19 cases with 231 “active” ones and four deaths.