A woman escaped from a quarantine facility in New Town, along with her two children, late on Tuesday, police said.

A search was launched and a police team accompanied by health department officials tracked the three down to their home in Narkeldanga on Wednesday morning, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.

The three had come in contact with at least six other people in their neighbourhood. All of them were quarantined at the New Town centre on Wednesday, the officer said.

Narkeldanga is around 17km from the NBCC Square in New Town where the quarantine centre has been set up for coronavirus patients, the officer said. “As this is an apartment complex, it has several gates and the woman sneaked out unnoticed through the rear gate with her children.”

As soon as police got to know that the woman and her children had gone missing, the commissionerate alerted all police stations and got in touch with Narkeldanga police station, the officer said. The woman’s phone was put under surveillance. “We began tracking her phone and traced her to her home in Narkeldanga.”

The police will speak to her to find out how she travelled close to 17km at night when transport is next to impossible because of the lockdown, the officer said.

The police and the health department are trying to find out if the woman was in contact with more people other than those already identified in her neighbourhood.

The quarantine centre on the campus of NBCC Ltd has 200 beds, a state health department official said. The central government-run company is involved in project management consultancy.