Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SHP)

Bengaluru, Mar 15: A Bengaluru techie's wife who recently tested positive for coronavirus has been booked by the Agra administration for not following quarantine instructions and 'fleeing' to Agra, where her parents live, by flight and train.

An FIR has been lodged against the Agra woman and her family. The 25-year-old woman, wife of a Google employee, had recently come back from Europe before her husband tested positive on March 12. She had taken a flight to New Delhi and then a train to reach Agra on March 9. She claimed that she was unaware of her husband's infection when she travelled from Bengaluru.

Although the woman is currently in isolation and her family members are quarantined, the district magistrate recommended action against the family for 'misleading health officials'.

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The case has been registered under sections 269 and 270 of the CrPC in Agra's Sadar Bazar police station.

The woman who lives in Agra Cantonment railway colony had recently travelled to Italy for her honeymoon. After they returned, her husband had tested positive for the virus in Bengaluru while she returned to her family.

"A letter has been sent to the divisional railway manager (DRM) recommending departmental action against the woman’s father, a railway engineer," the district magistrate was quoted in a report by Times of India.

The DM reportedly received an alert from Bengaluru on March 12 regarding the woman and her being in Agra. Soon, a health team was sent to the woman’s house where her father allegedly misled the team about her whereabouts. "The family lied to us about her whereabouts, saying she had left for Delhi by train, from where she will board a flight for Bengaluru. They refused to cooperate with the medical team jeopardising the safety of several others," Singh said.

The officials then went to great lengths to trace the woman. The DM had to get touch with the joint secretary, the central government, the secretary, state government and also make use of police intelligence to find the whereabouts of the woman.

The probe led them to the fact that the woman never left Agra, causing the officials to go back to her house and bring in all the people to the isolation wards.

Jawaid Akthar, Karnataka additional chief secretary (health and family welfare) said, "Hiding travel details, not adhering to the home isolation for 14 days after returning from affected countries is both morally and legally wrong."

The woman had landed in Delhi on March 9 on an Indigo flight and then boarded the Gatimaan Express from Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station in Delhi.

Now, the DM has formed three special teams to trace the co-passengers the woman travelled with. One team will trace Gatimaan passengers, the second will track her father's neighbours and the third would screen her father's railway colleagues. The officials are also working with Indigo to trace the people who sat beside the woman from Bengaluru.

Agra chief medical officer Mukesh Kumar Vats said, “On Mach 12, we were alerted about the woman’s presence in Agra and she was taken to the district hospital for her blood and other sample collection. The same evening, the woman went away from the hospital, even though the doctors on duty explained to her and her family that since her husband had tested positive, she is most likely to have got infected.”

On Saturday March 14, the woman's parents and six other family members tested negative for the virus.