36 quarantined labourers escape in Sitapur, Amethi

LUCKNOW: At least 36 persons, 18 each in

Sitapur

and Amethi, escaped from quarantine facilities on Friday taking the tally of such people to 200 across the state in just two weeks. However, officials said all of them, barring those fleeing the centres on Friday, have already been traced.

In Sitapur, district magistrate Akhilesh Tiwari and superintendent of police LR Kumar were inspecting quarantine centres on Friday evening when they found 18 migrant

labourers

missing from a centre. “We reached a quarantine centre in Pipri Sadipur under Pisawan police station to check the attendance register. We found that all 18 labourers being kept at the centre were missing. The centre also lacked proper hygiene,” Tiwari said.

The officers asked gram pradhan Om Prakash Verma, secretary Sheelam, lekhpal Deep Deepankar and

tehsildar Abhimanyu Verma

about the whereabouts of labourers and unhygienic conditions at the centre but they could not give a satisfactory reply. An FIR was lodged against six persons including the gram pradhan, lekhpal, secretary and tehsildar.

In a similar incident in Amethi, an FIR was lodged against 18 labourers who escaped from a college in Jamon area which was converted into aquarantine centre.

Station house officer, Jamon, Ratan Singh said the vil-lage head informed the police about the incident. Police lod-ged an FIR on charges of negli-gence causing spread of disease, disobedience of prohibitory orders under the Epidemic Diseases Act (1897) and the

Disaster Management

Act (2005). People quarantined in Ag-ra, Aligarh, Sultanpur, Hathras, Azamgarh and Hardoi ha-ve also escaped in last two weeks but they were later traced.