Kozhikode flight crash: CISF personnel quarantined after passengers test positive for COVID-19
New Delhi: The CISF has directed its personnel to go into preventive quarantine after at least two passengers of the Air India Express flight that crashed at Kozhikode tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Saturday.
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has said it was the "first responder" to rescue passengers on Friday as its Assistant Sub Inspector Ajit Singh was on runway patrol when the Air India Express flight from Dubai with 190 people onboard overshot the table top runway, fell into a 35-foot valley and broke into two.
At least 18 passengers, including the two pilots of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, were killed in the incident. "We are identifying our personnel, who rescued the passengers who have tested positive for coronavirus," CISF Special Director General (Airports) M A Ganapathy told PTI.
Another senior officer said the force has information that two passengers have tested positive for COVID-19. Around 50 CISF personnel, who were involved in the rescue operation, and their family members have been asked to quarantine themselves, he said.
The force will also conduct COVID-19 tests of all those who were exposed, the officer said. The CISF provides a counter-terrorist cover to the Kozhikode airport.
Another official said the rescuers of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and other airport officials have also been asked to go into self-quarantine in view of the COVID-19 positive report of some passengers.
ASI Singh, who saw the crash first, had immediately alerted his control room, which later informed the airport authorities and rescue teams from the CISF, airport authority, fire and police were subsequently rushed to the spot.
The CISF was inducted at this airport in 2001-2002 and has a strength of about 350 personnel, an officer said.
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Rahul Gandhi calls Great Nicobar Island project a ‘major threat’ to environment, tribal heritage
Sri Vijaypuram (Port Blair)/ Nicobar: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticised the Centre’s development initiative in Great Nicobar Island on Wednesday, On his maiden visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Gandhi alleged that the project will lad to large-scale environmental degradation and displacement of local communities.
The Rae Bareli MP, in a post on X after visiting the island, said the project would lead to extensive deforestation and adversely impact indigenous populations.
“So I will say it plainly, and I will keep saying it: what is being done in Great Nicobar is one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against this country’s natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime,” Gandhi added.
“The government calls what it is doing here a ‘Project’. What I have seen is not a project. It is millions of trees marked for the axe… It is communities that have been ignored while their homes have been snatched away,” Gandhi said.
Describing the initiative as “destruction dressed in development’s language”, he termed it one of the “biggest scams” against the country’s natural and tribal heritage and called for it to be stopped.
Gandhi also claimed that nearly 160 square kilometres of rainforest could be affected, raising concerns over ecological damage.
