The Villupuram district police have alerted their counterparts in Puducherry and launched a manhunt, after test results of a man who was quarantined in a private institution and released on Tuesday night came back positive. The man is absconding and police teams have launched a search for him.
Highly placed sources, on conditions of anonymity, said that the Health Department in Villupuram had released 25 persons, quarantined in the institution, on Tuesday night, after their test results came back negative. All the 25, excluding the man, were immediate relatives of returnees from the conference in Delhi.
A top police official said that the authorities seemed to have bungled up test reports, since the results of four of them had come back positive. The police immediately swung into action and traced three of them — all relatives of people who had returned from Delhi. They have been taken to isolation wards in Villupuram, while whereabouts of the man hailing from Delhi is not yet known.
“We could have traced him if the authorities had at least alerted them about his test status on Tuesday night. Health authorities alerted the police only on Wednesday noon, and a manhunt has been launched to trace him,” the official said.
The man, hailing from Patel Nagar in New Delhi, had come to Puducherry to attend an interview last month. He had met with an accident and was sent to the Kalapet Central Prison in Puducherry on March 16. He was in Puducherry for a few days before he reached Villupuram.
After enquiring about trucks to Delhi, he stayed along with two truck drivers in Villupuram for five to seven days, the police said.
When contacted, Villupuram Collector A. Annadurai said that the incident was being investigated by the Directorate of Medical Services.
Meanwhile, the Villupuram district administration on Wednesday circulated the photo of the man.
The administration has issued the appeal, asking people to immediately alert the control room on 04146 - 223265 if he is spotted anywhere.
The Villupuram police have formed three special teams to look for him.
