The police then took the accused to JJ hospital, where he underwent a test. “The results showed that he is infected,” an officer from Bangur Nagar police said. (Representational)

Three days after Taloja Central Jail refused to allow a new inmate insisting that he first be made to undergo a COVID-19 test, the man has tested positive.

The man was arrested in a robbery case by Bangur Nagar police last week. He was on April 22 produced before a court, which sent him to judicial custody. At Taloja jail, however, the authorities denied him entry, insisting on a COVID-19 test first.

The police then took the accused to JJ hospital, where he underwent a test. “The results showed that he is infected. He has been shifted to another hospital for treatment. The police officers who escorted him and those who came in touch with him during his police custody have been asked to self-quarantine,” an officer from Bangur Nagar police said.

With four prisons in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region being under total lockdown and not allowing new inmates, Taloja jail is the only prison taking in new prisoners. It has been insisting on a COVID-19 tests for inmates before they are allowed entry into the jail.

The refusal to take new entries without COVID-19 tests had earned the Taloja jail superintendent a court warning, stating that inmates ordered to be sent to judicial custody would have to be first admitted by the jail and then they can undergo a test if felt necessary at a government hospital. The court, in regard to an inmate arrested in Navi Mumbai, had warned that contempt of court proceedings will be initiated against the superintendent.

The jail authorities, however, stood their ground insisiting on the test, stating that if an infected patient enters prison premises, an outbreak will be difficult to control.

Taloja jail has over 52 inmates, who are in the age group of 65 to 80 years, suspectible to the infection, and over 23 with tuberculosis.

Since the outbreak, some prisoners from Mumbai Central, Byculla, Thane and Kalyan jails were shifted to Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai as a means to decongest them. Taloja jail, however, has also seen overcrowding since.

It currently has over 3,000 prisoners as against its capacity of 2,124.

With at least 5 to 10 prisoners, sent to judicial custody by various courts in the city, Thane and Alibaug coming in daily, the superintendent had begun insisting on a COVID-19 test.

Currently, prisoners who test negative are allowed entry into the premises, but are continued to be kept in an isolation ward for 14 to 20 days, following which, after preliminary tests by medical officers, they are sent to the barracks.