Four booked in Chennai for violating home quarantine orders

Four persons, including a father-son duo, have been booked by the police under various sections of the IPC and two other acts for violating the home quarantine guidelines issued by the Tamil Nadu Government to contain the outbreak of COVID-19.

All four had returned from countries that have been badly affected due to COVID-19 and were advised home quarantine for 28 days by the Health and Family Welfare Department.

While a 45-year-old civil engineer was booked on Tuesday, police slapped cases against three others, including a Chennai resident, on Wednesday.

The Chennai resident, who returned from China, has been accused of stepping out of his home in Anna Nagar, where he was asked to be quarantined, while the father-son duo, who arrived from Iraq, have escaped from a residence in Koyambedu to their native district of Ramanathapuram flouting the guidelines.

The government has been warning of strict action, including impounding of passport, against those foreign returnees violating quarantine guidelines. Health Minister C Vijayabaskar had, on Tuesday, made a fervent appeal to those advised home quarantine to follow the guidelines and lock themselves in their houses for the good of the society.

Police sources said all three have been booked under Sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

They were also booked under Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act and Sec 51(b) of the Disaster Management Act. They can be jailed up to three-and-a-half years in prison if the charges are proved.

The state has so far placed 15,298 passengers under home quarantine for 28 days and 43 asymptomatic passengers from highly affected countries are being quarantined in quarantine facilities near airport and 116 are under hospital isolation.

“Till now 743 samples have been taken from the passengers. The samples of 623 passengers have processed of which 608 samples are negative, 15 samples are positive for COVID-19 infection and 120 samples are under process,” an update from the Health Department issued on Tuesday said.