Uri, Sep 15: According to news agency (GNS)Thirty-two people from a single village in Boniyar tehsil of this border town have tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday after they attended the last rites of an elderly woman.

Doctors in Boniyar said that the locals have breached the COVID protocols during the burial of the woman. “We have the inputs that many people have attended the last rites of a woman following which we decided to carry out the rapid antigen testing and 32 people from Kholan village tested positive,” Dr. Parvaiz Masoodi, Block Medical Officer (BMO) Boniyar told GNS.

He said a total of 110 antigen rapid tests were conducted on Tuesday. “Among them, 75 samples were taken from the Kholan village alone while 35 others are from different villages of Boniyar,” Masoodi said.

He said among the 32 cases, it includes 21 females, 11 males including six children.

“I have taken up the matter with the DC Baramulla and CMO Baramulla and requested them to declare the village as Red Zone as we don’t have any space to keep them in the isolation,” he said.

A 60-year-old woman from the village had died on 6th September due to the coronavirus at SKIMS Soura and was later buried in the village in which locals have participated.

Panic has gripped the villagers after the COVID cases surfaced forcing the residents to stay indoors.

However, seven persons also tested positive for coronavirus today in medical block Uri. “Five are from a same family hailing from Jabla, Uri while two are from Nambla,” said a doctor