17 with ‘quarantine’ stamps offloaded from Mumbai trains

Mumbai: In a series of incidents in two days, a total of 17 persons coming from various international locations were deboarded from different trains after they were detected with the ‘quarantine stamp’ on their back-palms, an official said on Thursday.

These passengers, ostensibly jumping quarantine, were offloaded from Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, Saurashtra Express and Kutchh Express, both Gujarat-bound and Indore-bound Avantika Express.

In the first instance, six persons who arrived from Singapore were travelling from Mumbai Central to Vadodara by the Saurashtra Express of the Western Railway (WR) on a single ticket in B1 and B2.

“They were detected by alert Western Railway officials and the co-passengers. They were offloaded at Borivali station and handed over to a medical team,” said the WR official.

Later, six passengers — three from Dubai and three from France — with the ‘quarantine stamp’ were detected on board the Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and were offloaded at Surat.

In another instance today, a woman passenger with the quarantine stamp was not allowed to board Avantika Express at Mumbai Central and handed over to the city medical authorities for further procedure.

Five suspected of COVID-19 infection returning from Thailand were deboarded from Kutchh Express at Palghar and handed over to a district medical team.

This is the second major scare after four students coming from Germany were deboarded at Palghar from the Mumbai-Delhi Garib Rath Express on Wednesday after they were detected travelling with the compulsory 14-day ‘quarantine stamps’.

In both cases, it is not clear how they managed to evade the attention of the Mumbai health authorities, reach the railway station, book tickets, boarded the train and travelled unhindered for over an hour before being offloaded.

Last Monday (March 16), the Maharashtra authorities had implemented the decision to ‘stamp’ all people arriving from COVID-19 affected countries and sent them to 14 days’ compulsory quarantine.

With 49 COVID-19 positive cases in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has appealed to all who have been recommended ‘quarantine’ not to venture out in public as a precaution against coronavirus.

By IANS