At least 16 employees of Zee News working out of its Noida headquarters have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

A press bulletin from the Gautam Budh Nagar administration, which has jurisdiction over Noida, said a Zee News staffer was found positive for coronavirus on May 15, following which his 51 contacts were tested. “His 15 contacts who are employees in the same organisation, residing in GB Nagar, have tested positive," it added.

“His 13 more contacts residing in Delhi, Ghaziabad and Faridabad have also been found positive,” the bulletin continued, but did not specify if they were his relatives or coworkers.

The administration has now ordered the “sealing of the specific area of the premises”, and the sanitisation process is underway, the bulletin said. Also, Rapid Response Teams “are taking action of isolation and quarantine as per the protocol”.

All this was separately confirmed to Newslaundry by Rakesh Chauhan, district information officer of Gautam Budh Nagar.

The media company, however, insisted that only one employee has contracted the infection.

In a statement tweeted out by its chief editor Sudhir Chaudhary, Zee News denounced as “absolutely baseless and malicious” the news that over a dozen of its employees had tested positive. The company even threatened to take legal action against “people who spread such rumours and create panic”.

Newslaundry tried contacting the human resources department of Zee News for comment, but our attempts were unsuccessful. This report will be updated if a response is received.

Update: Sudhir Chaudhary later put out another statement, confirming that at least 28 Zee News had tested positive for the coronavirus.

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