Police launch hunt for man who tested positive

He was under quarantine and released on Tuesday night

09/04/2020, S. PRASAD,VILLUPURAM

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 condition 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.

The man, hailing from Patel Nagar in New Delhi, had come to Puducherry to attend an interview last month, after which he reached Villupuram.

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.