The Mumbai police have prima facie found out that the first person who died of COVID-19 at Dharavi had come in contact with around 10 Tablighi Jamaat members who had attended the gathering of the sect in Delhi. The police, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and health officers will have to find out every place they visited in the city, including in Dharavi, before they reportedly left for Kerala if they test positive.
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On Wednesday, Dharavi reported its first case, a 56-year-old garment shop owner from Baliga Nagar, and the person died on the same day. On Thursday, a doctor from Wockhardt Hospital living in the area also tested positive. He might have contracted the disease from his hospital as Wockhardt has so far reported at least two confirmed cases. A conservancy worker who did not live at Dharavi but had worked there had also tested positive, leading to concerns over whether Dharavi would become a hotbed.
In the case of patient 1, the police believe that he had come in contact with some Tablighi Jamaat members. Five men and five women who came to Mumbai on March 22 after attending the meeting in Delhi had stayed at Dharavi. The men stayed at the local masjid, while the women stayed in a flat owned by patient number 1. The police believe they left for Kozhikode on March 24. Three couples went by air and the other two went “by other means.” While the police believe that the deceased spent time with them, it is not yet clear if any of them have been tested positive. The police are in contact with their counterparts in Kerala.
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Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone V) Niyati Thaker said, “It appears the deceased had come in contact with Tablighi members. They left around March 24 and are suspected to have gone to Kerala. It seems the deceased provided them his flat. It is possible that they came in contact with several residents of the area. Now we have to trace each and every person but for that people need to co-operate.”
Assistant municipal commissioner of G North ward Kiran Dighavkar said, “We are trying to establish the link of where the first patient got the virus from. Things will become clearer once the reports of his close contacts are in. If at all the people coming from Delhi were carriers of the virus, we will have to find out where they ventured in the area or even the city, who they came in contact with and screen all of them. It will be challenging.”
