Jewellery showroom brings 30 workers from Chennai, sealed

COIMBATORE: The district administration

sealed

a multi-storeyed jewellery store on Crosscut Road on Saturday after it allowed 30 workers from Chennai to join work the very next day after they illegally entered the district, without keeping them in the mandatory 14-day quarantine. The shop owners hadn’t also alerted the health department about the arrival of the workers from Chennai.

Meanwhile, officials are also probing how the 30 crossed the border without being detected by police personnel at the check post.

Tehsildar Magesh Kumar said, “We received a tip from the public in the area that 30 people from Chennai had joined GRT Jewellers’ store on Crosscut Road the very next day after their arrival, without being tested for Covid-19.”

Inquiry revealed that the 30 had entered the district without e-passes on Thursday, when they were accommodated in a private lodge in the area, and joined work on Friday.

On Saturday, a team of revenue and health department officials inspected the store and found the 30 were working at the systems section of the building. They immediately sealed the building, stopped all customers, and started testing the employees.

“They said the workers from Chennai hadn’t mingled with customers. Besides the 30, we are testing nearly 200 of their employees. Since we have deployed a private laboratory to collect the samples, the jewellery store has been asked to bear the expenses of testing, which will cost Rs 3,500 per person,” the tehsildar said.

Sanitary inspectors were pressed into disinfect the entire building, including the basement. Officials said they haven’t decided on the duration to keep the store sealed. “All the workers have to quarantine for two weeks. And their test results have to come. District collector

K Rajamani

will decide on when they can reopen,” Magesh Kumar said.

The revenue department is, meanwhile, looking into how they crossed the district border without e-passes. “The store authorities say they were brought in a car in batches of six. The car had an e-pass, but only to move freely within Chennai. So, we don’t believe their version. We are investigating how they entered the district and how they escaped detection at check post,” he said.

The

Kattoor

police have registered a first information report against GRT Jewellers’ store manager and 39 other staff under Section 188, 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act.