india

Updated: Mar 18, 2020 17:34 IST

Amid the coronavirus scare, Railway authorities on Wednesday de-boarded four Germany-returned passengers with ‘home quarantine’ stamp on their hands from the Bandra Terminus-Delhi Garib Rath Express train at Palghar after co-passengers raised an alarm, the Western Railway said.

The four passengers had been asked to stay in home quarantine until April 1. They were travelling from Bandra terminus and were heading for Surat in Gujarat. Other passengers in the train raised an alarm after spotting the home quarantine stamp on their hands and informed the ticket checker who in turn, sounded the Western Railway authorities. The train then made an unscheduled halt at Palghar railway station, about 100 km from Mumbai and the four passengers were asked to de-board.

“Four passengers were de-boarded from coach G4 and G5.The passengers had flown down from Germany and were headed to Surat. They were taken to government hospital in Palghar. The passengers had undergone checking at the airport and had a seal mentioning home quarantine of 14 days,’’ a Western Railway official said.

The four passengers said they are from Surat, Vadodara and Bhavnagar in Gujarat. They were screened at the international airport on arrival from Germany and advised 14 days of home quarantine in Mumbai till April 1, as mentioned in the stamps on their hands.

On Monday, the Maharashtra government had decided to stamp the hands of people asked to undergo self-quarantine with indelible ink, so as to prevent them from coming in contact with other people.

Maharashtra has recorded a total of 41 positive cases of coronavirus including three foreigners. Another person has died of Covid-19.

Two foreign passengers were de-boarded from the Mandvi Express at Dadar railway station late Tuesday night and sent to the Seven Hills hospital for quarantine. The two foreigners who were from Karmali in Goa to Dadar railway station in Mumbai, had arrived in India on March 12 and were asked to be quarantined.