Coronavirus: Five families trapped as BBMP seals Ejipura building in Bengaluru

BBMP officials have sealed down a building in Ejipura with five families to ensure the quarantining of just one Covid-19 patient.

The incident comes a day after civic officials clamped metal sheets on the door of a flat in Domlur Layout where a Covid-19 patient was living, trapping them inside.

Read: Bengaluru civic body officials rub salt into Covid-19 wound, seal flat with metal sheets

The building belongs to a 45-year-old man, which officials sealed down on Sunday after his 17-year-old son tested positive last Friday.

The man, who lives in 3rd Cross in Ejipura Further Extension, told DH that he visited the Covid Care Centres in the city from Saturday morning till night travelling in his own car. No one admitted his son, who accompanied him. After he returned, his son spent four hours outside in the car. Unable to watch him struggle, the man allowed him inside the house and put him in a room.

The next morning, some contract workers came to his house and sealed down the building by fixing metal sheets to the gate. When he objected, one of the workers threatened to call the Hoysala patrol police and book him under NDMA and non-bailable sections.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

The man said he called the chief minister’s office, the Raj Bhavan, the MLA of his constituency, ward corporator, and other officials, but no one responded.

After sealing down the place, no health worker or official had come by to deliver medicines, milk, or groceries, he said. No one had even come to check on the family's health condition.

Rather than humiliating Covid-19 patients this way, it would be better if the officials killed them, the man fumed. “BBMP officials are treating patients like untouchables and in an inhuman way,” he said. The building has five other families, who are inconvenienced by the officials' action.

After the Domlur Layout incident caught media attention on Thursday, officials returned on Friday and removed the metal sheets, the man said. His son, a II PU student, is fine and taking online classes, he added.