Two Covid-19 positive prisoners, who absconded from a Covid care centre doubling up as a transit jail in Pakur, were arrested on the wee hours of Monday from Rampurhat in Bengal.

Pakur SP Mani Lal Mandal said, “Serial raids by different teams at various locations led to the arrest. Both the prisoners were traced and nabbed in Rampurhat in Bengal bordering Pakur district.”

The prisoners, Arjun Singh and Sandeep Kumar Pal are between 25-30 years. Arjun was arrested for theft at a railway siding, and Sandeep was nabbed for trafficking. A third prisoner Makbul Ansari had also tried to escape but he was caught after he fractured his leg. The three used bedsheets to climb down the five-storied building. They broke the iron bars of a window and climbed down by tying bedsheets and towels into a rope that was somehow attached to a tree adjacent to the building.

These three, who were part of 30 other prisoners, were lodged at the Covid care centre after testing positive on random tests. “We have upped the security of the place to prevent such reruns in future,” said the SP.

Strike at PMCH after dispute with cops

Doctors and nursing staff of Patliputra Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) boycotted work on Monday evening after dispute with cops of Barwaddah police station area.

Four policemen of Barwaddah police station had gone to PMCH for Covid testing but due to delay on account of the long queue one of policemen manhandled one doctor and beat up one nurse after which they boycotted work demanding action against the accused policemen.

A team of Dhanbad police led by DSP Mukesh Kumar on the instruction of Dhanbad DC Uma Shankar Singh is holding talks with the doctors and nursing staff.

Mismatch in case numbers declared by state and district raises concern

Mismatch in the number of positive cases of Covid-19, which is declared by state and district health departments separately every day, has raised concern with district administration claiming that the difference in figures is a result of a data reconciliation process being done to update the backlog of tested sample reports.

The numbers of the past five days have shot discussion among people, who believe that local district authorities are hiding the actual numbers though authorities have denied the charges.

There are two ways through which numbers of Covid-19 positive cases, active cases and discharged patients are declared to the public every day. The District Public Relation Department (DPRD) issues a press release, and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) unit of state health department issues a Covid-19 Bulletin. On Sunday, the bulletin said there were nine persons detected Covid-19 positive in Bokaro, but the DPRD press release stated that there were six cases.

The Covid-19 Bulletin displayed 81 positive cases on Thursday and 29 cases on Friday, but, DPRD press release stated that only 10 residents were found positive on Thursday and one on Friday.

Bokaro district administration has asked people to believe in data released by DPRD. The figures appearing in the Covid-19 Bulletin are actually combined figures with a backlog added to it.

Deputy Commissioner (DC), Bokaro, Rajesh Singh said, “The mismatch in number of positive cases, discharge cases and others with Covid-19 Bulletin is due to data reconciliation exercise being done to update the figure.”