Shifting prisoners could spread COVID-19: Kamal Nath

Expressing concern over shifting of some NSA detainees from one district to another despite the lockdown, after they tested positive for coronavirus, could spread the viral disease in other districts, said former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath.

Bhopal: Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath has expressed concern over shifting of some National Security Act (NSA) detainees from one district to another despite the lockdown, as some of them later tested positive for coronavirus.

"It is surprising that while there is lockdown in the state, many districts are under curfew and their boundaries sealed in view of the coronavirus scare and people not being allowed to move from one district to other, in such a scenario those detained under NSA in Indore were sent to Satna and they were found coronavirus positive," Nath tweeted on Sunday.

"This way corona infection will spread in other districts also," he further said in a tweet in Hindi.

Some persons who indulged in stone-pelting and misbehaviour with health workers and police in Indore were recently booked under the NSA.

After some of accused under the NSA were shifted out of Indore, two of them tested positive for coronavirus in Satna and one was found infected with the disease in Jabalpur, causing panic in the two districts.

Satna Collector Ajay Katesaria on Sunday said two prisoners, arrested under NSA in Indore and shifted here, tested positive for coronavirus.

Otherwise, there was no COVID-19 case in Satna district so far, the collector said.

The prisoners who tested positive for coronavirus have been shifted to the Rewa-based Medical College and those who came in contact with them have been quarantined, he said.

As a precautionary measure they were kept in the isolation cells, he added.

The Satna administration has requested the authorities concerned not to send prisoners there from Indore and Bhopal, which have been severely affected by coronavirus.

Jabalpur Collector Bharat Yadav said an NSA detainee out of four prisoners shifted from Indore to Jabalpur Central Jail tested positive for coronavirus before his admission to a local jail.

The prisoner has been shifted to a government-run hospital, he said.

The other three NSA detainees have been lodged at an isolation ward in the Jabalpur Central Jail, he said.

PTI Report