Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said on Friday that six of 28 Railway Protection Force personnel who had reached Howrah on April 14 from New Delhi were “untraceable” and they shouldn’t have been allowed to travel between states during the lockdown.

The Telegraph had reported on Friday that at least nine of the 28 RPF personnel had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Eight of them are posted in Bengal and the other in Odisha.

All the nine constables are in hospital and their contacts, including colleagues in the barracks, were quarantined.

The contingent is from the Kharagpur division of the South Eastern Railway.

“Out of 28, one went to Odisha and that person tested positive. That alarmed us and we put almost all of them to test. We tested 20 of them. Of them, eight tested positive… And we have not been able to trace six persons. I had a talk with DG RPF and I said ‘please give us the details of the other six person’ because if they are roaming in the streets and spreading the virus, it is the last thing that we want to happen,” Sinha said.

The chief secretary said he had written to the Union home secretary, saying Bengal had always been protesting that kind of movement. “...the RPF should not have sent these people to us. I had a dialogue with DG RPF late last evening and he has promised that he will ensure that nobody comes to Bengal till the lockdown is lifted.”

The spokesperson for the SER said a detailed report on the status of all the 28 people — along with their names, posts, quarantine centres and test results — had been sent to the state railway police in Kharagpur a day ago. “They are under constant monitoring. No one is untraceable,” he added.