Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 19 (IANS): After maintaining althrough that its decision to collect call detail records (CDRs) of Covid positive patients was a correct one, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government on Wednesday went back on it and informed the Kerala High Court that it will only collect the tower location of a Covid patient, and nothing else.

A division bench of the court was hearing a petition filed by Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala demanding the intervention of the court to prevent the new directive from being implemented, terming it as gross violation of people's privacy.

The state government pointed out that it's only intention is to ensure that those under quarantine do not break the rules, and the process of contact tracing is made easier using CDRs of the infected persons.

The court, however, asked the state government to come back with all the modalities of what they actually plan to do and posted the matter for the next hearing on Friday.

Chennithala had said last week that contracting the disease was not a crime and the patients were not criminals, as he slammed Vijayan for trying to turn Kerala into a surveillance state.