With no let up in incidents of “quarantined” patients travelling by trains, as many as 17 persons arriving in Mumbai from various countries, who bore “quarantine stamps” on their hands, were de-boarded from four different trains on Thursday.
Railway officials said that 17 passengers, who had jumped quarantine were offloaded from Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, Kutchh Express and Saurashtra Express, both of which are Gujarat-bound and Indore-bound Avantika Express.
In the first incident, six passengers who arrived from Singapore were spotted travelling from Mumbai Central to Vadodara by the Saurashtra Express of the Western Railway (WR) on a single ticket in B1 and B2. “They were detected by alert co-passengers and Western Railway officials. They were de-boarded at Borivali station and handed over to a medical team,” a senior West Railway official said.
In the second incident, six passengers – three each coming from Dubai and France respectively – who had been “stamped” for a mandatory 14-day quarantine on their arrival at the city airport from international locations—were found on board the Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and were offloaded at Surat.
Similarly, in the third incident, a woman passenger – who bore a quarantine stamp on her hand -- was stopped from boarding Avantika Express at Mumbai Central and handed over to the city medical authorities for further procedure.
In yet another incident, five persons suspected to have been infected by Coronavirus – who had returned from Thailand -- were off-loaded from Kutchh Express at Palghar and handed over to a district medical team.
On Wednesday, four passengers -- who had been “stamped” at the Mumbai Airport for a 14-day compulsory quarantine – had attempted to “escape” from the medical custody by boarding the Mumbai-Delhi Garib Rath train to train to their home town of the neighbouring Surat. However, alert co-passengers foiled their attempt en route and handed them over to the authorities of dstrict medical authorities at Palghar.
The four passengers had arrived from Germany to the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. Soon after their arrival, they had been ‘stamped’ at Mumbai Airport for a 14-day compulsory quarantine.
Little over an hour after the train carrying the quartet departed from Mumbai on Wednesday, some alert passengers and the travelling ticket examiners raised an alarm when they noticed the four co-travellers with the ‘quarantine stamp’ on the back of their palms. The train was stopped at Palghar, the four passengers were offloaded from coach Nos. G4 and G5 and promptly handed over to a medical team there.
Another shocking incident came to light on Wednesday evening in which a resident from Kalyan – who had reportedly tested positive for coronavirus -- had travelled to Solapur by train to attend a wedding where he might have contact with at least 1,000 people. However, the authorities said that they had not anyone among those who had come in contact with him were found with symptoms of Covid-19 so far.
The person in question had returned from the US on March 6 and on the same evening, he had headed to Solapur by Hutatma Express.
Earlier, there were two more instances of suspected coronavirus patients jumping the quarantine from a medical facility in the state. It may be recalled that four and three patients had jumped quarantine and escaped from the hospitals at Nagpur and Ahmednagar respectively. However, the authorities traced them to their homes and brought them back to the hospitals subsequently.
