In a major breach, one student who had returned from Guwahati on Sunday jumped the quarantine measure and directly went to his home in Hollongi in Papum Pare district. Alert officials managed to track the student down and he was later taken to a quarantine centre in Naharlagun along with six others with whom he had come into contact. This incident is an eye-opener for the government of Arunachal. There have been discussions on whether to bring back all the stranded Arunachalees to the state.
The Hollongi incident should act as a wakeup call for the authorities. They really need to gear up and fill up the loopholes in the system that allowed such a major breach. Lack of coordination between the officials posted at the check gates and the higher authorities is clearly visible. A standard operating procedure (SOP) should be immediately worked out and everyone should follow it. Right now, each district is following its own SOP and there is no uniform one. Also, the incident raises a serious question mark over how the state will deal the situation when around six thousand Arunachalees return to the state when the lockdown ends. It will be a Herculean task to quarantine all the six thousand people. Are the authorities prepared enough and are there enough quarantine centres to accommodate all the returnees?