Authorities in Uttar Pradesh are struggling to contain people within coronavirus (COVID-19) quarantine centres in rural areas.
Interactive map of confirmed coronavirus cases in India | State Helpline numbers
In many districts, migrants who returned home following the lockdown and consequent loss of jobs, and were kept inside these centres as per preventive protocol, have jumped quarantine or found reasons to leave the centres. The government estimates that around 2-2.5 lakh such migrants returned to various districts of U.P. after it operated bus services to transport them back from Delhi and nearby cities.
The administration has taken action against such persons in several districts including Hathras, Sultanpur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Rae Bareli, Sitapur, and Azamgarh.
Those returning from other cities and States are being kept in primary schools or other buildings outside the village for a designated period before being granted entry to their homes.
In Sultanpur, 26 persons out of 115 in a quarantine centre in Faridipur village in Gosaiganj escaped from the second floorwith the help of a cloth rope at night on March 31. However, the Sultanpur police said all 26 were were soon traced and arrested.
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In Rae Bareli on Thursday, an FIR was lodged against nine persons in Kubna village in Maharajganj tehsil for escaping the isolation centre built inside the local primary school. The FIR invoked Sections 269, 270 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code and relevant clauses of the Disaster Management Act.
In his police complaint, Lekhpal Badrinath Tripathi said the nine persons should be charged as by escaping they risked spreading COVID-19 knowing well that it was a highly infectious disease. “They have violated the