Man spends 3 days quarantining in public toilet after villagers deny him entry
Balasore: A 30-year-old labourer, who arrived from Ganjam district to his native village in Balasore, spent three days in an abandoned toilet after the residents of his village denied him entry. His ordeal finally ended on Monday night, when he was moved to a primary school nearby.
The humiliation of Kalia Bindhani of Sarkarnagar village in Saraswatipur gram panchayat, who had gone to Humma in Ganjam to work as a daily-wage labourer, began after he returned to his village on Saturday evening and was asked by the local sarpanch to stay in home quarantine for 14 days as he did not show any symptoms of Covid-19.
Bindhani, who lives in a one-room thatched house with 12 others, had little choice but to seek the nearest empty building to isolate himself, which turned out to be an abandoned toilet on the outskirts of the village. A quarantine sticker, too, was pasted on the wall of the toilet indicating his date of arrival in the village and the end of the quarantine period.
The naib sarpanch of the panchayat, Manoj Sethi, attributed the confusion to the lack of guidelines regarding the arrival of intra-district migrant workers. “The labourer himself wanted to be quarantined as he had arrived from Ganjam, which is a badly affected district now. But we don’t have a government quarantine centre in the village. Where would he have stayed?” Sethi said, adding that he had raised the issue with the local BDO, tehsildar and health officials.
Sakuntala Majhi, a local anganwadi worker, said Bindhani’s case was made more complicated as he was an unregistered worker. “As he had no symptoms, he was asked to stay in home quarantine for 14 days. He had no space in his house and the villagers did not allow him to enter the village, so we asked him to stay in the toilet,” she said, adding, “I apprised the sarpanch and the health department officials of his case and requested them to shift him to a quarantine centre. But they said he was not a registered migrant and at best they could only provide treatment if he showed symptoms of Covid-19,” she added.
Bindhani was finally moved to the Sarkarnagar new primary school. “There is no quarantine centre in the village. Even when he was in the toilet, we provide him with food and other materials from the panchayat fund,” said Saraswatipur sarpanch Rashmirekha Behera.
Bindhani, meanwhile, said he chose to stay in the toilet to safeguard his family and neighbours. “How can I stay in quarantine in my home when there are 12 people in that room? I preferred staying in the toilet so that my family members and other villagers don’t get infected,” said the daily-wager.
The three days that Bindhani spent in the toilet were difficult in more ways than one. Chotu Bindhani, the worker’s mother, said the villagers did not allow her to give food and other essentials to him.