Srinagar: A government employee posted in Civil Secretariat inSrinagar on Friday tested positive for the novel coronavirus, official said.

A senior officer and some staffers have already gone in self-quarantine as soon as news about the orderly testing positive was communicated by the health authorities.

Sources told GNS that the orderly, a resident of Mansbal, had carried dusting etc in the office of the Director Expenditure on Sunday, a day before Darbar Move offices opened here. He had also visited the office next and carried his job despite instructions by the concerned authorities who had told him not to visit the office as he showed up symptoms normally associated with the disease.

Director Expenditure Tariq Khan said that orderly’s brother is battling cancer and is admitted at Super Specialty Hospital Shreenbagh and “he would visit him regularly.”

“He was told to not come to the office already. As a precautionary measure, I have gone to self-quarantine,” he said.

The Director said that on inquiring into reasons for him visiting the secretariat despite instructions it has come to fore that he was following the case of his brother, a cancer patient, for monetary assistance.

This is the first case when any employee at the secretariat has tested positive. Following it, Srinagar Municipal Corporation carried out sanitization at third and fourth of the large building which also houses among others the offices of lieutenant governor, his advisors besides top bureaucrats.

A senior officer at the secretariat said that immediate measures were required to be taken for the safety of others. “The CRPF personnel posted at the entrance would frisk every individual. The employee would have roamed around while visiting the secretariat,” he said, adding, “The government needs to move swiftly to see who needed to be isolated in wake of the incident.”

KR Desk