Kerala police chief denies confirming 'love jihad' in state

Bengaluru, May 15: With lockdown-3 coming to an end in a couple of days, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Friday expressed confidence about the Centre announcing relaxation to "many things" after May 17.

"After May 17, the government of India is going to relax so many things, let us wait for it," he said in response to a question from reporters here. "According to me they (centre) will relax everything.... maybe for things like five-star hotels and others they may not give permission for the time being, but for other things they are going to give permission. Let's wait and see."

The nationwide lockdown was initially imposed from March 25 to April 14, then extended to May 3 and again to May 17 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Karnataka Tourism Minister C T Ravi on Wednesday had hinted at the state government permitting the opening of gyms, fitness centres and golf courses, also certain hotels for local tourism purpose after May 17, when the third phase of the COVID-19 induced lockdown comes to an end.

The Muzrai department (in charge of the administration of temples) was also planning to have a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in place, that needs to be followed at temples once they are opened for the public, officials have said. They said the opening of temples for the public is however subject to the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) guidelines.

During the recent video conferencing Prime Minister Narendra Modi had with Chief Ministers of various states, Yediyurappa had proposed doing away with district wise colour-coding and instead advocated strict cordoning of containment zones to control the spread of the pandemic.

He had pitched for resuming all economic activities in stand-alone establishments while continuing the restrictions on malls, cinema halls, dining facilities and establishments with centrally controlled air-conditioning. The CM had suggested that 50 to 100 meters around known clusters be declared as containment zones and commercial activities, including public transport, to be allowed in non- containment zones.

Udupi, June 2: The number of positive cases may continue to be more in Udupi district since the results of more than 3,000 samples are pending with Labs.

The district total cases to 260. The figure had seemed far-fetched on May 15, when the number of cases stood at just three. The latest spike has been attributed to the return of migrants from other States as well as from abroad. These samples are from people who returned to the district in the last two weeks.

This delay is because the laboratories testing samples from Udupi are burdened with a high case-load after more than 8,500 people returned to the district, particularly from the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

"Samples have piled up after the influx of people returning from other states and from abroad," says Dr Prashant Bhat, nodal officer for COVID-19 in Udupi. This delay has caused returnees in institutional quarantine to stay on for as long as 18 days.

The designated laboratory for coronavirus testing in Udupi is Wenlock District Hospital in Mangaluru. The district administration also sends samples to laboratories at the Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, Yenepoya Medical College, Mangaluru, KS Hegde Medical Academy, Mangaluru, and Viral Diagnostic Laboratory in Shivamogga. Apart from Udupi, the laboratory in Manipal is also testing samples from Uttara Kannada district. The laboratory in Shivamogga is also testing samples from Shivamogga and Bijapur districts. The laboratories in Mangaluru, similarly, have samples from Dakshina Kannada district.

Dr Avinash Shetty, Medical Superintendent of Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, one of the private laboratories being used by the Udupi district administration, said that they are testing samples in batches. "We received around 600 samples today and we will be testing them now. The backlog of samples should be cleared in the next few days," Dr Avinash said.

All 73 cases reported in Udupi on Monday were patients with travel history of returning from Maharashtra or patients with travel history of returning from abroad.

In cases of some patients who tested coronavirus positive in the past week, people were released from institutional quarantine after a stipulated period only to be tracked down again and admitted in hospitals after their results returned positive.

While two such cases emerged in Belapu and Belman in the district, the administration is now following up with others who were released from institutional quarantine to ensure they remain in home quarantine till their test results are confirmed.

The spike in cases among returning migrants in Udupi also comes at a time the Karnataka government reduced restrictions on interstate travel.

Patna, Mar 31: In arguably the first of its kind incident in the country, a young man in Bihar was beaten to death precisely because he had informed the district control room about two corona suspects who had arrived here in the State from Mumbai.

The incident took place in Sitamarhi in North Bihar where a 20-year-old youth Bablu Kumar was allegedly killed by Sudhir Mahto and Munna Mahto.

The two Mahtos had arrived from Mumbai to Sitamarhi around ten days back. Bablu, in the meantime, informed the district control room about the arrival of two persons from a State where a large number of people were afflicted with coronavirus.

A team of doctors on March 24 reached Runnisaidpur in Sitamarhi to examine the two suspects. Three days later, these two persons from Maharashtra tested negative.

But the incident (of informing control room and subsequent medial test) created such enmity between the family of Mahtos and Babloo that on Sunday when they found the 20-year-old young man sitting alone, they thrashed him so mercilessly that he died on the spot.

Shocked and grief-struck, Babloo’s father Vinod Singh eventually lodged an FIR with the police and named Sudhir Mahto, Munna Mahto, and their family members as accused in the killing of his son.

The police on Monday raided the place and arrested the Mahtos.

But then, this is not an isolated case of violence. In another incident that took place in Bihar’s Jehanabad district, a BDO Ajay Kumar and a police officer Chandrashekhar Kumar were attacked by fellow villagers when the officials reached there to quarantine those migrants who had reached there from Delhi. So angry were the villagers with the officials’ move to isolate the migrants that they smashed the window-panes of the government vehicles and attacked the officials.

The officials had to beat a hasty retreat. But they soon returned with additional police team which used brutal force and took local leaders into custody before restoring normalcy in the area.