JOIN USBengaluru: Padarayanapura corporator tests COVID-19 positive, booked for defying rules
Padarayanapura corporator Imran Pasha, who has tested positive for Covid-19, was on Saturday night booked for defying regulations to go into the designated hospital.
JJ Nagar police have received a complaint from BBMP officials and are in the process of registering an FIR under sections 269, 270, 271 of the IPC and provisions of the NDMA Act.
Chamarajpet MLA B Z Zameer Ahmed told DH that Pasha had been informed that he had tested positive around 8 pm on Friday night after he complained about cough and breathing problems.
As per Covid-19 protocols, Pasha should have been immediately moved to Victoria Hospital, the designated Covid-care hospital. However, 15 hours elapsed before he entered the hospital as a patient.
Countering allegations that he sought home quarantine, Pasha told media persons on Saturday morning that he was awaiting a copy of his Covid-19 report before turning himself in to health authorities.
On Saturday afternoon, Pasha was seen wearing a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kit as he boarded an ambulance to Victoria Hospital. The corporator said that he first came down with the symptoms of the Covid-19 on May 22.
Zameer Ahmed said he first learnt about Pasha’s condition when both of them were due to visit the Commissioner of the BBMP on Friday. The ward has 67 confirmed cases as of Saturday.
“I heard him coughing on the phone and asked him if he was unwell. When he described the symptoms, I immediately set up an appointment for him at a private hospital. It was there that he tested positive,” Zameer Ahmed said.
Pasha reportedly assured Ahmed that he had not stepped outside his home since Thursday, barring the hospital visit. In the preceding days, he had made at least one visit to the BBMP office at Corporation Circle and had met various officials, according to BBMP sources.
At least one of the senior officers is now under the institutional quarantine as a result of that meeting, and several other BBMP officials are on the primary contact list. Currently, Pasha’s list of primary contacts includes 19 people plus several officials and a secondary contact list of 21 people, a BBMP official said.
Pasha has denied that he moved around freely during the time he was ill.