A man wanted for auto theft in at least two north-eastern states is among nine who tested COVID-19 positive over the last 24 hours, taking the total number of such cases in Assam to 53 with 34 of them having been discharged after recovery while a 65-year-old died in April.
Four of them had travelled in the same bus that brought the absconding vehicle-lifter from Ajmer in Rajasthan to Silchar in southern Assam's Barak Valley on Wednesday. Four others, including a cancer patient, have tested positive in Guwahati.
Officials said the middle-aged man wanted in several cases of vehicle thefts had tried to avoid arrest by reaching Silchar instead of his home at Dhekiajuli in northern Assam’s Sonitpur district in the bus.
His cover was blown hours later when he tested COVID-19 positive. Four of his co-passengers tested positive on Thursday.
“He was among 42 people, including eight children, who travelled to Assam after the administration in Rajasthan’s Ajmer granted permission for travel. His test result put the other passengers and officials who handled them at risk,” Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
He said that the man, identified as Faridul Islam, has auto theft cases registered against him in police stations across Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. He went missing before the lockdown began on March 25.
“We have asked the police to probe how he managed to lie low in Ajmer,” Mr Sarma said, adding that all the other passengers of the bus have been sent to quarantine facilities while several localities in Barak Valley have been marked as containment zones.
The police in Dhekiajuli said they have sent Islam’s wife and two children to a quarantine facility “to be on the safe side”. The man had undergone jail terms on at least four occasions for vehicle-lifting, a police officer said.
Tripura leads the positive chart in the northeast with 88 cases, all but two of them Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and their family members. The State's Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Thursday said 24 personnel from the BSF's 86th Battalion tested positive.
The Battalion is at Ambassa, headquarters of Dhalai district bordering Tripura, where the 138th Battalion is also located. In five days till Wednesday, 62 BSF personnel of the 138th Battalion, including eight members of their families, had tested positive.
Ambassa is 82 km north of Tripura capital Agartala.
The only other person in the region who died of COVID-19 was John Sailo Ryntathiang, a 69-year-old doctor in Meghalaya capital Shillong. With 12 cases, 10 of whom were discharged, Meghalaya is third on the list.