After 53 people have perished in Karnataka due to the H1N1 virus, second only to Maharashtra’s 72, the bureaucrats manning the gates of health in the State have zeroed in on the pollutants: the IT wallahs.

Principal secretary (health), I.R. Perumal tells Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) that pollution and laxity on the part of the IT folk hastened the virus’ spread:

“IT people travel a lot and during the initial days they hardly took any precaution. Even companies like Infosys had failed to do their duty in helping people take precaution against the disease. They have become conscious, but initially none of these IT guys, even Infosys, took the required precaution. I have information that now they have started conducting regular health checkups of employees.”

Read the full article: Swine flu: Karnataka blames pollution, IT people

Photograph: Actors Puneeth Rajkumar (second from right) and Tara greet traffic policemen who received pollution masks from the Bharatinagar residents forum in Bangalore on Saturday (Karnataka Photo News)