Over 750 persons, including health workers, were quarantined in lower Assam’s Bongaigaon district on Friday, a day after four cases of Covid-19 came to light in the district. All of them were found to have come in contact with the four recently.

None of the four fresh cases in Bongaigaon — two connected with healthcare, one a vegetable vendor and the other a housewife — have any travel history or have been found to have come in direct contact with any Covid patient so far. At least three areas of Bongaigaon town have been marked as containment zones.

The district administration, while contact tracing, found that the infection might have spread in the area from a local medical officer who is a primary contact of a previous case from Dhubri district but continued to be on duty.

Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “Some 266 people, including doctors and nurses in the district, were quarantined and another 500 were kept in home quarantine within containment zones. The role of the medical officer is under scrutiny. The district administration is thinking of filing a case against him.”

Several people in Barpeta and Nalbari districts were also quarantined on Friday after they were traced to the Bongaigaon patients.

It was also found that the four Bongaigaon patients were not asked to be in quarantine despite showing symptoms earlier. “All of them were tested after showing symptoms of influenza but were not advised to stay in quarantine initially,” Sarma said.

The minister said 30 out of the state’s 33 districts have been marked “green zone” as per the Union health ministry’s categorisation of India’s districts on Thursday night. The status of Bongaigaon is yet to be updated by the Centre since the four cases were reported on Thursday.

The Assam government on Friday welcomed the Centre’s extention of the lockdown for two weeks from May 4 with some relaxations.

On Friday, three more Covid patients of Assam and the lone patient from Nagaland who was undergoing treatment in the city were discharged. The state had nine active cases, out of the 42 cases it has reported so far, till the filing of this report. With two from Morigaon and one from Golaghat being discharged on Friday, the two districts now have no active Covid patient.

Meanwhile, Assam police have launched a manhunt to nab a group of people who attacked a police team at Naoboicha in Lakhimpur district on Thursday night when the police, because of the lockdown, restricted them from assembling at a local mosque for prayers. At least four police personnel and the village headman were injured and the police vehicle was also damaged.

Lakhimpur district superintendent of police Rajveer Singh told The Telegraph, “Five persons have been identified but are on the run. An operation is on to nab them. The situation is normal and the injured are stable.”

The Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA), a forum of nationalists, demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

Additional reporting by Sanjoy Hazarika in Bokakhat and Neelim Akash Kashyap in Nalbari