8 Inmates Test Covid Positive in Sabarmati Jail

GANDHINAGAR:
A chance Covid testing in Guajarat”s Sabarmati Central Jail found at least eight inmates positive for the disease after an undertrial insisted on bail to be sent home.

The Sabarmati Central Jail authorities, following the bail application in the Gujarat High Court by 2019 murder accused Manubhai Desai, decided to conduct tests at the facility before sending him home. They detected eight inmates to be Corona virus positive. This is the first instance where the inmates, with no contact to the outside world, have been found positive inside the jail.

All Covid positive inmates were hospitalized. Desai had filed the bail application in the High Court, citing his sick wife saying he needed to be his children as his house was in an Ahmedabad containment area.

He had suspected that his wife might have contracted the virus. So the court ordered for his wife to be RT-PCR tested, but she was found negative. The court had apprehensions that if the wife would have been positive, she could infect not only the kids, but Desai too, who could bring along the virus to the jail, on his return.

Later the wife was, however, quarantined after she came in contact with a positive patient. Learning about this, once again Manubhai filed a bail application to the Gujarat to be with his kids, the court granted it but asked him not to proceed without a test.

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday ordered for the applicant inmate to be tested for Corona. The jail authorities after carrying out the RT-PCR test on Manubhai, found him to be positive. Alarmed by this, the authorities carried out RT PCR tests for the entire barrack of 23 inmates, where Manubhai was kept. The authorities also conducted random tests in random on some of the inmates of other barracks too.

“We found that apart from Manubhai, 4 other inmates from his barrack were also positive and through random sampling of other barracks three more inmates were found to be positive. This is the first time that, such inside inmates have been found positive,” said DV Rana, the Deputy superintendent of Police of Sabarmati Central Jail talking to the IANS.

“All the 8 positive inmates are asymptomatic. We have had a total of 41 RT-PCR tests carried out on inmates and as a precautionary measure have quarantined around hundred inmates who might have come in contact with these 8,” added Rana.

Until now the inmates who went into the outside world on parole or on bail, after returning were sometimes found to be positive of Corona after the outbreak. But this is a first instance where the inside inmates have been found positive which has alarmed the authorities regarding the virus outbreak.