13 Foreign Returnees In UP's Meerut Gave Wrong Numbers, Addresses

Thirteen of the nearly 300 international travellers who landed in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut have provided wrong contact details to the administration, the district's chief medical officer has said, adding that efforts are on to locate them.

Akhilesh Mohan, the Chief medical officer of Meerut, said that officials are now being sent to their homes to identify them and get their tests done. If even these houses are not found, then information is being given to the local intelligence unit to help locate them, the official said.

"Thirteen out of 297 foreign returnees have given wrong mobile numbers and addresses to the administration. The details that they provided to us have been given to LIU (Local Intelligence Unit) to find out their whereabouts," Meerut CMO Dr Akhilesh Mohan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Dr Mohan added that seven out of the 297 fliers had returned from South Africa, the country that first reported the Omicron variant that has forced many countries including India to revise the travel rules. The doctor, however, did not specify if any of the missing travellers came from 'at risk' countries.

There have been several reports of foreign nationals becoming untraceable after landing in India.

In Karnataka, state officials government are trying to track down 10 more people who reportedly went missing from the airport. The southern state is also trying to trace a 66-year-old South African national who was found to be Omicron-infected.

India reported its first two cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant on Thursday but the government said it had no immediate plan to authorise booster vaccine shots despite demands from lawmakers.