12 more BSF ‘praharis’ test coronavirus positive in Jodhpur

Twelve more jawans of a BSF company, which had been deployed earlier in the Walled City area of the national capital on internal security duty, tested positive for coronavirus infection on Thursday.

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The tewelve BSF ‘praharis’ were found infected a day after their 30 other colleagues tested positive for the infection, taking the total number of Delhi-returned infected BSF personnel in Jodhpur to 42, said an official. Test reports of the samples of these jawans were released by the state’s Medical and Health Department on Thursday afternoon.

According to a BSF official, all these jawans were the part of a BSF company comprising 57 jawans, which had been sent to Delhi from Jaipur on internal security duty and had been put up at the Jama Masjid in the national capital.

The entire company was air-lifted to Jodhpur on Monday and was quarantined at the BSF’s Subsidiary Training Center (STC) here after some of the jawans of the company deployed in the walled city area in New Delhi tested corona positive.

A BSF official said samples of all the 57 jawans had been taken after the battalion was shifted to STC quarantine center of BSF in Jodhpur. “Thirty out of 44 were tested positive on Wednesday while the report of the remaining 13 jawans' samples was due.

Twelve more have been tested positive out of the remaining 13 samples,” a Medical and Health Department official said, adding “15 of them are negative”. All of them have been admitted to the Jodhpur AIIMS here for treatment while those, who tested negative, will remain in quarantine center for 14 days.

This BSF battalion had been deputed at the Jama Masjid during the Tablighi Jamat chaos in Delhi, where some of them had tested positive. After this, the entire battalion was shifted to Jodhpur, considering the better and adequate facilities at its STC quarantine centre.

On the other hand, with regard to officials and jawans at local level, BSF Rajasthan frontier IG Amit Lodha, however, said no other jawan at the local level in Jodhpur has been found infected so far and every possible measure has been taken to ensure that local BSF praharis remain insulated and shielded from the infection.