SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Jan 10:The Dhanbad district administration has directed the civil surgeon (CS) for screening all jail inmates from today for their safety from Covid infection.
The official sources of health department said the Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sandip Singh has issued a directive regarding Covid testing of all prisoners in wake of an alleged report about former MLA Sanjiv Singh being infected.
Sanjiv Singh has been lodged in Dhanbad jail in connection with murder conspiracy of his cousin brother and deputy mayor Neeraj Singh since April 2017.
As per official record, 810 prisoners are lodged in Dhanbad jail and all of them are unaffected at present.
A senior official of the health department said that the DC has given only a verbal order to the civil surgeon so far and the step is being initiated for the screening process. Since testing teams of health department are engaged at different places, a separate team would be set up to conduct the tests in the jail.
Meantime, the jail hospital authorities denied that any inmate in jail has been found infected.
“I’m not sure where the report of a positive prisoner came from, because no testing of any inmates in jail has been done. Only on the orders of a higher authority may a prisoner be tested in jail. However, no such order had been issued for testing. As a result, the report about a positive case in jail is misleading,” said Dr Alok Vishwakarma, the jail doctor.
Dr Vishwakarma further said that there is no chance of any prisoner being infected as whosoever comes to jail, enters only after getting screened by the Integrated Diseases Surveillance Programme (IDSP). Moreover, even the jail staff are being properly screened before their entry in jail.
Meanwhile, the jail’s hospital has neither any testing kits nor lab assistant to conduct any screening. Sources said that the hospital has services of only an X-ray technician and a dresser to cater the requirements of the prisoners.
