J&K: Anti-terror mechanism used to track people escaping Corona quarantine

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR: Human Intelligence, a weapon used for busting terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir, has come in handy to trace people who concealed their travel history, besides in retracing the steps of Coronavirus positive patients, in an operation that led to tracking of over 1,000 people who have since been quarantined in various parts of the union territory.

Fighting this new battle, officials said the authorities roped in the state intelligence machinery who were tasked to track, identify and bring such people to quarantine facilities.

The intelligence personnel along with the regular police, which remain at the forefront in the fight against terror groups in the union territory, were now complementing the district administration in its efforts to ensure the success of the lockdown, besides tracking people who hid their travel history from the authorities.

According to a report submitted to the Centre, over 1,000 people who had either traveled out of the state or abroad were brought to quarantine centres between March 15 and 31 and their identification and verification was going on, the officials said.

Also, more than 28,000 people are under surveillance which included 10,600 who have been either quarantined at government facilities or in home-isolation, the officials said.

There have been 92 positive cases so far in the union territory out of which two have died.

A total of 34 hotspots have been identified in Jammu and Kashmir which include: seven in Pulwama, five in Srinagar, and four each in Bandipora and Budgam; two in Shopian, one each in Ganderbal and Baramulla in Kashmir division; and five in Rajouri, four in Jammu and one in Udhampur district of Jammu division.

The process was intensified after the death of a COVID-19 positive Kashmiri businessman on March 26. The immediate need was to track people whom he had met since his arrival in Jammu from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh during which he had attended the Tablighijamaat function at Nizamuddin, the officials said.

Upon his arrival in the Union Territory, the businessman held a congregation at Samba in Jammu before returning to Sopore in North Kashmir where he participated in a religious function.

"We knew that it's a chain reaction. He would have met one and the chain continues. So it was necessary to immediately break the chain," said an official of the JK administration, spoking on condition of anonymity.

During all this, intelligence officials had to move in their resources of human intelligence to track people he had met and the result was that some Coronavirus positive cases were located in parts of Jammu as well as Kashmir, the official said.