Reza Mahmud :
Several hotels assigned for boarding returned migrants in quarantine are releasing them after taking money without keeping in quarantine, sources said.
Government stipulated about 93 hotels to keep on arrival passengers in institutional quarantine for 14 days, who arrived without being vaccinated from 12 Countries.
The countries are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Georgia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Uruguay.
If the passengers arrive after taking covid vaccines they will be allowed to go homes and to stay in isolations for 14 days.
But several of those hotels are releasing the returned migrants to go home without staying quarantine.
They handed over fake bills of staying quarantines in their hotels to the passengers which guaranteed them to go home.
It created huge risks of spreading dangerous variants of covid-19 virus in the country.
One of those hotels in Sector-11 at Uttara is keeping passengers even not for a single day. They use to manage the returnee migrants to go home just after paying booking money.
When a phone call was given to the hotel introducing a relative of a returned migrant, one of the officials there said if the passenger gives them fixed money for booking the hotel, he can go home without passing a single day in quarantine.
“We can arrange a way for avoiding staying quarantine even for a day. You just pay our hotel rents for 14 days only,” the employee replied from the opposite side of the telephone.
The officials said, “Pay Tk 21,000 to our hotel. We can prepare documents for your passenger who can easily go home without passing any day in hotel.”
He said also that there was no guest in their hotel. All have gone home.”
Officials from another assigned hotel from Sector-6 at Uttara said, “If the passenger gives them Tk 25,000 as booking money, he can be released only after two or three days.”
Officials from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said they also learned about the allegation and trying to pursue the culprits.
Public health experts expressed anxiety at severe variant spreading by the returned migrants in such incidents.
When contacted, Professor Dr. M. Muzaherul Huq, former Advisor of the World Health Organisation told The New Nation on Thursday, “Returned migrants should follow the quarantine rules. Same should be followed by the assigned hotels.”
The Professor said, “It should be monitored, supervised strictly by two authorities, one from the DGHS and the other by the local police authority particularly by the local police station as well as bit police.”
When contacted, Professor Dr Abul Bashar Muhammad Khurshid Alam, DG of the DGHS told The New Nation on Thursday, “We have sent teams to visit several assigned hotels after getting such allegations. They found it truth with few hotels.”
The DG said, “We have informed it to health ministry to take punitive actions. Besides, we have suggested the DGFI, NSI, Police and other law enforcers to monitor the matter strictly.”
