Srinagar/Jammu, Sep 12: Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday recorded the highest single-day spike of 1,698 new COVID-19 cases, taking the union territory’s tally to 52,410, while 10 more fatalities pushed the toll to 864, officials said.
However, some news agencies reported that the death toll has reached to 866.
It is for the 10th time in as many days that the number of fresh cases has crossed 1,000 in a 24-hour period.
“The UT recorded 1,698 fresh cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours — with 838 in Jammu and 860 in the Kashmir Valley,” the officials said.
This is the highest single-day spike in the union territory so far, they said.
The total number of positive cases in Jammu and Kashmir has now risen to 52,410.
Srinagar district reported the highest number of fresh cases at 255, followed by 250 in Jammu district, the officials said.
Giving breakup of the cases, they said Budgam reported 123 fresh cases, Baramulla 82, Pulwama 50, Anantnag 45, Kupwara 108, Bandipora 82, Kulgam 10, Ganderbal 45, Shopian 60, Udhampur 103, Rajouri 83, Kathua 42, Samba 58, Poonch 93, Ramban 31, Doda 67, Reasi 33 and Kishtwar 78.
There are 16,261 active cases of the coronavirus disease (COVD-19), while 35,285 patients have recovered so far, they said.
Ten more people infected with coronavirus died in Jammu and Kashmir in the 24 hours till 5.00 pm on Friday — six in the Jammu region and four in the Kashmir Valley, the officials said.
With this, the death toll in the union territory has climbed to 864.
Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Congress president G A Mir on Saturday expressed concern over the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the union territory and demanded a fact-sheet on the facilities available in the hospitals to meet the challenge.
He also demanded immediate restoration of 4G mobile Internet services and said the lack of facility is causing a lot of hardships to the student community who were forced to stay home and attend virtual classes due to the pandemic.
“The COVID-19 cases are increasing with each passing day and there are reports of lack of adequate facilities including shortage of oxygen in Jammu hospitals which is a cause of concern and reflects mismanagement and mishandling of the situation,” Mir told reporters here.
He said there is a need for immediate necessary steps on war footing to augment the facilities to meet the “worsening situation”.
“Government should come out with a detailed statement of facts to assure the people about the facilities to deal with the emerging scenario,” Mir said.
Expressing his displeasure over the continued suspension of 4G mobile internet services in most parts of Jammu and Kashmir, he said the students are the worst-hit as they are not able to attend their online classes due to connectivity problems in view of the low speed.
“The government should not play with the career of the children,” he said and questioned the arbitrary charging of tuition fee by private schools.
On introduction of domicile certificates, he said it seems that the government is not worried about the safety of the people and is adamant to line them up by rejecting the genuine request to treat Permanent Resident Certificate (PRC) the same as domicile document.
Mir also took a dig at the central government over the setting up of a delimitation commission for J&K and claimed that only the ruling party is involved in the exercise with ground officials “to create a road map for the exercise”.
He said his party is keeping a track on the situation and will do whatever is required to deal with the issue in accordance with the law.
Referring to the upcoming third phase of back to village programme of the administration to address the problems being faced by the people in the nook and corner of the UT, he claimed that the earlier such exercises proved futile as not a single work was carried out.
He demanded a CBI inquiry into the recent attempt of temple land grading in the heart of Jammu and said his party would continue “highlighting the double standards” of the BJP on the issue.
