Home quarantine rules are being flouted by 35 people on an average every day in Bengaluru, the Department of Health and Family Welfare has found over the past week.
Apart from shifting violators from their homes to institutional quarantine centres, the department is also booking police cases against them. Those in home quarantine have also been asked to send selfies every hour to the department, but many are not complying with this.
People returning from abroad are ordered to be in home quarantine for 14 days and are also stamped. But department officials said despite these measures, many, including a doctor, software engineers, and students have been found violating quarantine norms. Such people have been shifted to Akash Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre at Devanahalli.
As on Saturday, the Home Quarantine Enforcement squads had placed 371 people across the State in institutional quarantine for violating rules. The squads, which consist of an AYUSH doctor and a police official, started functioning on March 23.
Sources in the department said that many see people with these stamps walking on the road or in common spaces in apartment complexes or buying groceries in the market and call the police helpline — 100 — or the Health Department’s helpline — 104. “Within 15 minutes, our squads reach the spot and verify the details. If the person has not completed the mandatory 14-day home quarantine, he/she is shifted to the hospital,” an official said.
But Health Department officials said people have also been making calls to the helpline if they see foreigners in their locality. “People are panicking and calling us if they see foreigners. But we go and verify the details by looking at their passport and have found that many of the foreigners do not have any travel history. However, we do want the public to call us if they are suspicious and feel that a person is breaking the home quarantine rules,” the official added.
In Bengaluru, they have received around 95 calls from the public and in 12 cases they found people violating home quarantine rules. There are 40 home quarantine enforcement squads in Bengaluru who have booked those violating norms under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and under different sections of the Indian Penal Code.
As India suspended all international flight arrivals on March 22, the last international traveller who landed in Bengaluru will complete the home quarantine period on Monday. The State government has released a list of 14,910 foreign returnees who have been home quarantined. The list can be downloaded from https://karnataka.gov.in/
