13 SRPF personnel test positive for Covid-19 in Pune, Hingoli and Mumbai

PUNE/AURANGABAD: Thirteen personnel of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF), tasked with guarding district borders and Covid-19 hotspots and who have come in contact with a large number of people in cities such as Pune, Malegaon and Mumbai, have tested positive for the contagion.
Of the 13 jawans, three are from Pune, seven from Hingoli and three from Mumbai.
The latest case was reported on Saturday of a 27-year-old jawan from the Jalna unit of SRPF, who was posted in Malegaon in Nashik district. He had travelled with the six other jawans, who had tested positive for the contagion earlier and were in quarantine in Hingoli.
Archana Tyagi, additional director general of police, SRPF, said, “The SRPF jawans are posted at check points as well as deployed for bandobust on streets and lanes of red zones to strictly implement the lockdown. They jcome in contact with residents and sometimes with infected persons too,” she said.
She added that a team of doctors visit the check points and red zones where the SRPF personnel are posted to conduct medical check-ups daily. “If a jawan raises a health complaint, especially of Covid-19 symptoms, he is sent to the hospital without delay,” she added.
The SRPF personnel are working under the guidance of the local police where they are posted. On Saturday, two units of the SRPF were giving roundthe-clock protection to four hospitals in Malegaon after incidents of attacks on medical staff were reported. There are 24 constables, 10 police officers and nine units of SRPF jawans giving security to the four hospitals. Each SRPF unit comprises 30 personnel and an officer.
All SRPF personnel have been given the necessary masks, sanitisers and face shields for personal protection. “We have facilities at different command centres and we have also created a large isolation facility. The jawans will be sent to these facilities for 14 days before they are allowed to go home,” Tyagi said.
Hingoli district civil surgeon Kishorprasad Shrivas said two groups of jawans of platoon number 12 of Hingoli SRPF had returned from duties in Malegaon and Mumbai on April 19 and 20, respectively.
These jawans, about 107 from Malegaon and 87 from Mumbai, were placed in institutional quarantine at the SRPF camp, Hingoli. Throat swabs of the suspected cases were given to Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad. On April 22, six jawans were admitted to the isolation ward of the district civil hospital in Hingoli after they tested positive.
Gopal Kadam, resident medical officer at the district civil hospital in Hingoli, said they started contact tracing of the six confirmed cases and realized one jawan, a Hingoli resident, took a drop at Jalna SRPF camp. “He later travelled to Hingoli on a motorcycle. He was detected with Covid-19. The 46 people, who came in contact with him at Jalna SRPF, are being screened,” Kadam said.