The superintendent of Arthur Road jail, Nitin Wayachal, has self-quarantined after the driver of his official vehicle tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday. The driver is one among 103 people - 77 inmates and 26 staffers - at the jail who have tested positive for the disease. a politician said he's undergoing treatment at a hospital in which Wayachal’s deputy is going to be responsible for the jail during the quarantine period.

Reportedly the swab samples of 200 inmates and 76 staffers had been sent to JJ Hospital and Thyrocare over the past few days. Deepak Pandey the inspector general of police, prisons, informed that on Friday afternoon, all 77 inmates who tested positive were shifted to a quarantine center in Mahul, near Chembur, under adequate police protection.

However, activist Bilal Khan from Ghar Bachao, Ghar Banao Andolan, who has led a movement to rehabilitate project-affected-people who were shifted to Mahul in 2017, objected to the choice to shift the patients there. “A place that has been proven to offer healthy people lung and kidney disorders is certainly not a secure place for those affected by a respiratory illness. This decision is probably going to place them in harm's way. It shows how little thought civic officials have put into making arrangements for coronavirus patients," he said. He added that there have been several vacant and unused buildings that would be a more suitable alternative.

Apparently, the primary case of COVID-19 came to light when a person who had been there since last April, over a murder case, suffered a light paralytic attack on May 2. He was mentioned JJ Hospital and therefore the next day his swab sample was tested for Covid-19. On May 4, his test came back positive. The subsequent day, a team of doctors from JJ Hospital visited the jail and picked up the 276 swab samples.

The inmate probably contracted the virus from a person who works at the jail’s kitchen, which is on the brink of the barrack where he was lodged, before spreading it to other inmates. The kitchen worker is among those that tested positive but is asymptomatic. a jail official told Mirror that nobody has yet been tested at Thane, Taloja, and Kalyan jails.

There are currently 2,600 inmates at Arthur Road jail. About 400 were shifted from the overcrowded jail to Taloja jail a month ago, and on the directions of the supreme court, around 700 people in jail for fewer serious offenses were released on interim bail.

No word from officials say worried families of inmates

Meanwhile, families of prisoners and undertrials in jails across the town made frantic calls to their lawyers on Friday morning, after hearing the news that 103 people lodged at Arthur Road jail had tested positive for Covid-19. The families of these serving sentences or remanded in judicial custody are unable to satisfy them since the lockdown began quite 40 days ago.