57 girls at Kanpur shelter home test COVID positive, 5 pregnant

Fifty-seven girls at a state-run children’s shelter home in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur district have tested positive for COVID-19, with five of them found to be pregnant, an administration official said on Sunday (June 21).

Two other girls in the shelter home, who are also pregnant, have tested negative for the virus, he said. The shelter home has been sealed, and its staff quarantined.

Talking to reporters, Kanpur DM Brahma Dev Ram Tiwari said, “The five pregnant girls, who have been found COVID-19 positive, were referred by the Child Welfare Committees of Agra, Etah, Kannauj, Firozabad and Kanpur under the POCSO Act. Two other pregnant girls have tested negative for COVID-19. The seven girls were pregnant at time, when they came to the shelter home.”

The district magistrate added that two girls are undergoing treatment at LLR Hospital in Kanpur, while three others are undergoing treatment at private hospital.

According to NDTV, Poonam Kapoor, a member of the UP State Women’s Commission, told the media the girls were probably infected after shelter home staff visiting a Kanpur hospital with two girls came into contact with COVID-19 patients.

Reports claim that UP Women’s Commission chief Vimla Mathur and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have spoken to Kanpur’s district magistrate on the matter.

In a Facebook post, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had attacked the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the media reports about the girls being found pregnant at the shelter home. “The entire story of the Muzaffarpur shelter home case is in front of the country. Such a case had also come to light in Deoria in UP,” Priyanka Gandhi said.

In this scenario, such an incident again coming out shows that everything is suppressed in the name of investigations, but very inhuman incidents are taking place in government child protection homes, she said.

(With inputs from agencies)