Corona outbreak - Flyer list spooks Darjeeling locality

Navin Agarwal, a travel agent at Sonada, about 15km from Darjeeling, said he had received “more than 300 calls” between 10pm Tuesday and 2am Wednesday.

The calls were made after a list of 28 travellers who had taken the same flight as the deceased Covid-19 patient from Kalimpong started doing the rounds on social media since Tuesday evening.

The deceased woman had travelled from Chennai to Bagdogra on a SpiceJet flight on March 19.

Ten of the 28 people whose names were leaked had their flights tickets booked by Agarwal’s co-partner in Chennai. The co-partner had given Agarwal’s phone number and Sonada address in the ticket details. Another woman whose ticket address was given as Sonada has been identified as a citizen of Nepal.

Darjeeling district police chief Amarnath K. said: “We verified the details of the 28 names. Even though the addresses of 11 people have been given as Sonada, we have verified that they are not from Sonada. There were three passengers from Darjeeling whom we have identified and they are in home quarantine. They are being closely monitored.”

Agarwal said the “over 300 phone calls” he had received were from the anxious residents of Sonada.

“Of the 10 people whose tickets had my phone number and address, two are Bangladeshis, three are from Jalpaiguri and two from Siliguri. Three people are not picking the phone but all details about them were given to the authorities concerned,” said Agarwal.

Of late, official documents with addresses and phone numbers of people under surveillance for the novel coronavirus seemed to have come out in the public domain.

An official note from a block development office to the higher authorities merely informing the travel history and personal details of a Darjeeling resident who had flown from Dubai was recently circulated on social media.

Officials couldn’t explain how the note had been leaked.

Another list of people under quarantine in Kalimpong district was also leaked in social media, along with their addresses and phone numbers.

While some district officials said government document should have never been disclosed, another section felt at a time some state governments were pasting notices in front of quarantine homes, the leak of the Kalimpong list would only make people more aware of the individuals from whom they should keep away. 

https://www.telegraphindia.com