A week after a Delhi-based COVID-19-positive man went missing after he was released from quarantine from the Villupuram Government Hospital due to a “clerical error”, a special police team from Villupuram traced him to Pattalam in Chengalpattu district on Tuesday.
A team led by Superintendent of Police S. Jayakumar found him at a lorry terminal situated between Maduranthakam and Pattalam.
The man, hailing from Patel Nagar in New Delhi, had come to Puducherry to attend an interview last month. He was involved in a road accident, following which he was arrested and remanded in the Kalapet Central Prison in Puducherry.
After coming out on bail, he reached Villupuram, and was staying in a facility operated by the local Red Cross when he developed fever and was admitted to the GH. After he was released from quarantine on April 7, the authorities realised that he was COVID-19-positive. But he was untraceable.
Mr. Jayakumar said that immediately after the man was discharged from the Villupuram GH, he boarded a lorry. He had been staying with a few lorry drivers at the terminal in Pattalam due to the restrictions on movement of vehicles during the lockdown.
The police had issued a nationwide alert and had constituted seven teams to trace him. Mr. Jayakumar said the police had put up posters in Tamil, Hindi and English with photographs of the man all along the highway from Ulundurpet to Chennai. “The posters also had the contact number of an Inspector and called upon the people to alert the team if they spotted him. A lorry driver from north India, who saw the poster in a lorry terminal, alerted another lorry driver from Tamil Nadu who, in turn, informed us,” he said.
The man is being brought back to Villupuram, while four lorry drivers who had stayed with him have been handed over to a police team in Chengalpattu district, Mr. Jayakumar added.
