Kerala blames illegal travellers for new cases in green zones

Chief Minister flags smuggling of people in cargo vehicles

24/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

The State government on Thursday said the illegal movement of people across interstate borders might have triggered the emergence of new COVID-19 positive cases in Green zone districts such as Idukki.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan flagged the smuggling of people across borders in cargo vehicles and lockdown-defying illegal travel across districts as the foremost threat to the State’s epidemic containment strategy, which he said had entered its third phase.

Mr. Vijayan asked law enforcers to commit their resources, including drones, to halt the to and fro movement of people between Kerala and Karnataka and also Tamil Nadu through forest trails, illegal crossing points, and rural roads.

The tightening of lockdown curbs had spawned a mafia that transported people to other States and districts in return for cash. The curfew-breakers contracted a network of ambulance and container lorry drivers to conceal passengers in the holds of their vehicles. Some persons living on properties abutting inter-State borders aided the racket.

Probe ordered

Mr. Vijayan ordered an investigation into how a schoolteacher from Thiruvananthapuram could enlist the help of the police, and later the Excise Department to travel to Thamarassery in Kozhikode from where she crossed over to Karnataka in an excise vehicle for onward passage to New Delhi.

The Wayanad police said the woman had journeyed to Muthanga unchallenged on the strength of a vehicle pass issued by the DySP, Narcotic Cell, Thiruvananthapuram Rural. She then crossed over to Karnataka allegedly with the help of an inspector attached to the Excise Circle Office, Kalpetta.

District Police Chief, Wayanad, R. Ilanko, said the police booked the woman and the excise official for violating lockdown and jeopardising pandemic control.