Tracing the Nanded cluster trail
the span of four days, Hardeep Singh Kahlon’s life turned upside down.
The 38-year-old bus driver was hailed as a hero in his village in Punjab’s Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar district when he ferried back 40-odd stranded Sikh pilgrims from Maharashtra’s Nanded town on April 29.
But in four days, the celebration turned into suspicion as hundreds of pilgrims across the state started testing positive for the coronavirus disease, or Covid-19. Local villagers started avoiding his family and Kahlon, along with two other drives who accompanied him on the bus, were whisked away to a quarantine centre where it was confirmed they had contracted the disease.
As he remained shuttered from the world, a fog of rumours and allegations descended on his family and relatives. The drivers were accused of being carriers of the virus, helping passengers evade screening and allowing people other than pilgrims to enter the buses; politicians discussed their role in Punjab’s largest Covid-19 cluster that accounts for two-thirds of the state’s 1,946 cases. But Kahlon betrayed little bitterness as he walked out of the quarantine centre on Saturday.
Based on interviews with 30-odd government officials, doctors, pilgrims, gurdwara management officers and pilgrims, HT recreated the circumstances that led to the rescue of 4,125 pilgrims across India in a fleet of buses and the unlikely emergence of the cluster across two states despite near-hourly surveillance by multiple officials
AFTER THE LOCKDOWN When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 25, most pilgrims had left for their home states but roughly 4,500 people were still in the complex.
Of this, 4,125 people were from Punjab and the rest were from
Jammu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Rajasthan. At least 200 of them continue to stay in the pilgrim quarters even now, said Master Singh, a sevadar.
Among the pilgrims was Daya Singh, a 57-year-old farmer from Sursingh village of Punjab’s Tarantaran district, accompanied 60 of his friends and family. Narinder Singh, a 60-year-old resident of Khemkaran village in Punjab’s Tarantaran district, came by himself. Gurwinder Singh, a 38-year-old soldier from Chajjal Wadi village in Amrisar district guided 10 members of his family for the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. All stayed in the complex at langar sahib.
The gurdwara management arranged for doctors to do daily checks of the pilgrims and started negotiating with the local government for the passage of the stranded pilgrims. But negotiations were stalled quickly.
The gurdwara board approached the district administration, which got in touch with the state government. Simultaneously, the Punjab government wrote to the Maharashtra government for permissions. Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal also appealed to the government for special arrangements to evacuate the pilgrims. “Two special trains were demanded for their passage, but permission was not given. Finally, the permission came on April 21-22 for the evacuation by road,” said a senior official from the Nanded district administration on condition of anonymity. Within hours, chief minister Amarinder Singh and Harsimrat Kaur Badal had exchanged barbs with the ruling Congress and the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party blaming each other for the delay in evacuating the pilgrims.
SECOND GROUP LEAVES On April 13, Narinder Singh decided it was too dangerous to stay back in Nanded and arranged for a vehicle to take him back, along with 12 other pilgrims. His other motivation for going back: the harvest season had begun and he was already getting several calls a day from his family to come back and oversee the cutting of crop.
It took him nine days to return home, and they, too, were stopped at several barricades. “Many a times we got only single meal as dhabas were closed. We paid Rs 1 lakh to the tempo for the journey,” said the 60-year-old man.
With the arrival of the buses on April 24, the third and most important leg of the pilgrim evacuation began. Gurwinder Singh and his family were among the passengers on the first few buses.
The soldier claimed no one in his family slept for the three days on the road. “The bus only stopped when people need to go washroom. We even got our langar, made by the gurdwaras on the way, inside our buses and we were not allowed to step out.”
They reached their home in Amritsar district late on April 27 but bad news was waiting for them. Five pilgrims in Tarantaran district’s Sursingh village – the native place of Daya Singh – had tested positive earlier that day, sounding an alarm throughout the state. By the next day, Daya Singh, Narinder Singh and Gurwinder Singh had all tested positive for the virus. As of Saturday, 1253 pilgrims have tested positive for the virus and one –56-year old Gurjant Singh from Ludhiana district – has died.
ROOT CAUSE
How did so many pilgrims get infected without the authorities finding out until it was too late? There are three theories.
The first is that the pilgrims contracted the virus during their month-long stay at the gurdwara. Maharashtra and the gurdwara management deny this. “Not a single person had any symptoms of virus till last day of the departure of the last batch on April 27. We were conducting regular check-ups as per the guidelines of the central government,” said Ravinder Singh Bumgai, the secretary of the gurdwara board.
But Nanded municipal corporation health officer Suresh
Singh Bisen confirmed to HT that the authorities conducted only thermal screening. Given that about 90% of the Covid-19 positive pilgrims are asymptomatic, it is possible they contracted the infection without fever. “We did it continuously for five days. No complaint. We didn’t find anything,” Bisen said.
The second theory is that the pilgrims were infected during the journey. The 79 buses came in two varieties – with 40 seats and 31 seats – but they were all airconditioned. The passengers sat close to each other, and the AC – which research has shown can be a carrier of the virus – was on the whole time. The route crossed several red zones and at many places, Sikh volunteers organised ‘langars’. One such spot was Indore city, which has reported more than 2,200 cases.
Some pilgrims also alleged that in a limited number of buses, outsiders were allowed to board. According to gurdwara management member, around 150-200 labourers joined the pilgrims when they got to know that the Centre had allowed buses to evacuate them. “The labourers joined the pilgrims and came back using vehicles arranged by the government. However, these labourers were not checked even using thermal scanners,” a 42-year old pilgrim from Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district claimed.
The third, and somewhat less plausible, theory is that some of the drivers had been unknowingly infected before they drove their buses down to Maharashtra. This theory has taken hold in Punjab in the past two weeks after a 45-year-old driver tested positive for the virus. Maharashtra public works department minister and guardian minister of Nanded, Ashok Chavan, said the infection was spread through the drivers and cleaners of the buses. “Had gurdwara staff been infected earlier [as claimed by the Punjab authorities], the virus could have spread across the city much before the pilgrims were evacuated,” he said. ing this beta-carotene gives this type of characteristic colouration to the water. It is also related to increased evaporation, salinity, and the current hot and humid weather conditions,” said Rahul Khot, assistant director (in-charge of the flamingo monitoring program). “We do not know the impact on birds due to this change in water colour.”
A microbiologist said there are a group of bacteria called halobacteria that grows in extremely high saline environment, which give a bright pink or reddish appearance. “There is scientific literature that states that this carotenoid red pigment is secreted by halobacteria. This is could be mostly coming from the algae present in the creek,” said Dr. Rohini Kelkar, director of laboratories and head of microbiology, Tata Memorial Hospital. “Bacteria produce a whole range pigments and reactions many of which we aren’t aware about. The caretonoid pigment probably attract the birds that are sensing the nutrient value in the water. However, these are still assumptions, and can only be verified through a detailed sampling study.”
Ornithologist , naturalist and writes Sunjoy Monga said a similar discolouration of water with a pink hue was witnessed at a flamingo habitat in Porbandar, Gujarat on May 3, 2007. “This happened at the edges of the creek cramped with flamingos with high salinity displaying a pinkish maroon wash to it. While we took photographs, we had no idea what caused this,” he said.
Tania explained that in 2016 when residents had shared images with Spanish researchers, they confirmed similar events at flamingo habitats in Spain. “We were told the algae and bacteria result in such changes when temperatures increase. However, such incidents were not observed in Navi Mumbai over the past two years,” she said. “From the available details of the presence of this phenomenon in Mumbai, there is no other possible explanation other than the presence of red algae at this flamingo feeding ground,” said Dr P Pramod, principal scientist, Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History.
PINK CREEKS, RIVERS ACROSS THE GLOBE
A similar example of what has been observed in Navi Mumbai was recently witnessed across a massive stretch at the Edgars Creek in Melbourne, Australia, that started on May 10 and intensified subsequently. The source of the pink water is being investigated by regional environment officers, the Epoch Times reported. Other examples of changing water colour to pink across a much larger area has been observed Cameron Falls in Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada and the Dead Sea, a salt lake between Israel and Jordan to name a few.
Admissions for postgraduate medical courses, which had been delayed by a month due to a stay by the Bombay high court (HC) over in-service quota issue, is back in the courtroom, as some petitioners moved the court over the seat matrix. Petitioner doctors informed the court that despite a 25% increase in overall seats for 2020-21, the number of seats in the open category shrunk from 330 in 2019-2020 to 327 for the year 2020-21.
The HC, while hearing the petition on Friday, directed the state and the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) to explain the rationale and justification behind the decrease in seats for open category candidates. While the admission process has not been stayed, the court said the selection process would be subject to orders which may be passed.
A single bench of justice NJ Jamadar, while hearing the petition filed by Dr Pushkar Dongare and others through