HP: Journalists take ride home on vegetable truck, booked for violating lockdown

Two Punjab journalists were booked by police after they travelled home to Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district in a vegetable truck violating lockdown restrictions with one of them later testing positive for COVID-19.

In a nearly seven-minute video statement on Thursday, HP Director General of Police Sita Ram Mardi said the two journalists had entered the hill state in a vegetable truck a few days ago and reached their homes violating lockdown norms.

One of them, a 26-year-old man is a resident of a village in Kangra's Jawali sub-division, Mardi said while adding that the man tested COVID-19 positive on Wednesday. The other journalist is also a resident of Kangra district.

First Information Reports (FIRs) have been registered against both the men for violating the ongoing curfew and the truck drivers have also been booked, the DGP added.

Issuing a warning to drivers engaged in supply of essential commodities or cargoes, the DGP said any driver found to be ferrying unauthorised persons from other states to HP would be dealt sternly as per law.

The DGP said that a clerk of a newspaper in Punjab had tested positive on Wednesday. A resident of Chamba's Bhattiyat sub-division, the clerk arrived in HP a few days ago and has already been kept under quarantine.

Following two new positive cases, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur appealed to all residents of HP stranded outside the hill state to remain wherever they are in the larger interest of their families, the society, the state and the nation till further instructions.

Meanwhile, the state government has decided to set up screening centres at all inter-state-border barriers where all persons entering HP will be tested with rapid diagnostic kits, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) R D Dhiman said.

Issuing a circular in this regard on Thursday, Dhiman said that it is observed that there is inter-state movement of many persons in vehicles carrying supply of essential commodities every day apart from persons entering the state on permits issued by the authorities concerned.

Those found positive during rapid diagnostic tests will be kept in temporary quarantine centres near the inter-state-border barriers and their RT-PCR tests will be conducted for confirmation of COVID-19 disease, he added.

ACS (Health) further stated that movement of persons from designated hotspots would also be closely monitored. Any person found moving from the hotspots will be tested through rapid diagnostic kits, he added.

The state has reported 36 COVID-19 positive cases so far with two people having died of the novel disease.