A ward of Guwahati Central Jail has been converted into a COVID-19 hospital less than a week after two prisoners escaped from an out-of-town Covid Care Centre they were taken to.
Apart from people serving time for various crimes, the jail has been in focus for housing anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act activists Akhil Gogoi and other members of his group besides extremist leaders from Assam and Manipur. Mr. Gogoi tested positive and is under treatment at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).
“A team of doctors and paramedical staff has been posted at the jail to tend to the asymptomatic prisoners being kept separately in a ward turned into a temporary hospital. This was done after the security threat of keeping prisoners elsewhere was analysed,” a jail official said, declining to be quoted.
Assam has 31 jails but prisoners of 10 of them have tested COVID-19 positive so far. Out of a total of 481 prisoners who tested positive, 180 have recovered and 301 are undergoing treatment.
The bulk of the COVID-19 positive prisoners — 435— are from Guwahati jail that has about 900 prisoners now.
The jails in Assam have a capacity for 8,938 prisoners. There are 8,788 prisoners now after 577 were released on personal bond and bail to decongest the jails in keeping with a Supreme Court directive.
Health officials said only the asymptomatic prisoners will be kept in the jail’s COVID-19 ward while the symptomatic ones such as Mr. Gogoi and National Democratic Front of Boroland chief Ranjan Daimary are being treated in GMCH.
“We have 32 seats reserved for prisoners who test positive,” a GMCH official said.
Sharjeel tests positive
Anti-CAA and National Population Register activist Sharjeel Imam, who has been lodged in Guwahati Central Jail since February 20, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Jail officials said his swab samples were taken on July 18 and the test report on Monday night said he was positive but asymptomatic. He was shifted to the jail’s COVID-19 hospital.
His health status, officials said, has put off the plans of a Delhi police team that had arrived on July 17 to take him back to the national capital.
A student of Jawaharlal Nehru College, Mr. Imam was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly making inflammatory speeches that led to the violence outside Jamia Milia Islamia University in Delhi in December 2019.
The Delhi police had on January 25 registered a first information report against him in cases related to sedition and promoting or attempting to promote communal disharmony.