In Punjab, 15 from Meerut among 20 kept in quarantine

RUPNAGAR/MUKTSAR/PATIALA: Twenty persons, including four from Anandpur Sahib in Rupnagar district and 15 residents of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, who attended a gathering of Tablighi Jammat in Delhi’s Nizamuddin or have association with the seminary, were put under quarantine in Punjab.

The four from the Anandpur Sahib area were home quarantined. They are residents of Nakkians, Bunga Sahib and Massewal villages. They had gone to Nizamuddin on March 13 and returned the next day.

Rupnagar deputy commissioner Sonali Giri said they were asymptomatic and 14 days had passed since they returned home. They were home quarantined as a precautionary measure, she said. The samples of 19 persons in the district were found negative for virus.

The 15 Meerut residents were put in quarantine at a mosque in Muktsar on Wednesday. They were found asymptomatic of Covid-19, said cvil surgeon Dr HN

Singh. Muktsar SSP Raj Bachan Singh Sandhu said they had arrived in the town on March 19 via Delhi. They have been directed to stay in quarantine for another 14 days, he added.

“They are supposedly religious preachers and are associated with Tablighi Jamaat. As per their statements, none of them attended the recently held congregation at Nizamuddin,” said the SSP.

A 69-year-old man from Malerkotla in Sangrur district, who attended the Tablighi Jamaat meet in New Delhi from March 10 to 13, was admitted to the isolation ward of Government Medical College (GMC), Patiala, on Wednesday.

“The patient has a history of obstructive pulmonary disease. We have taken his samples for coronavirus and sent it for testing,” Patiala civil surgeon Dr Harish Malhotra said.

He said that the reports of six primary contacts of the 31-yearold positive Covid-19 patient from Patiala were found negative.

The health department has kept them in quarantine as a precautionary measure.