Covid-19 crackdown in Doaba; With district administrations in Punjab struggling to enforce appropriate Covid behavior among the public, at least two districts – Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur – have adopted a unique way of teaching a lesson to those caught without a mask.
For the past three days in Hoshiarpur, police vans have been picking up those who were caught without masks and taking them to the Civil Hospital for examination. Meanwhile, in Kapurthala, police teams travel alongside sample collection teams from the local Civil Hospital who take samples for Covid testing after someone is caught without a mask.
Hoshiarpur police said that in the past three days, more than 3,000 people were taken to the Civil Hospital for Covid tests, both rapid and RT-PCR, and returned.
Violators are caught in various nakas that the police are setting up throughout the district.
DSP (crime against women), Hoshiarpur, Madhvi Sharma, who was commissioned by the SSP to run this campaign, told The Indian Express that the move started on Sunday. He said 700 people were tested on Sunday, 1,600 on Monday, and 1,100 on Tuesday.
The police vehicles transfer the offenders to the civil hospital, the police lines hospital, and a mobile health team also remains deployed with the police. “We have made adequate seating arrangements in buses/vehicles while continuing social distancing,” he added.
The police are not imposing any fines on the poor, rather they are giving them masks to wear at no cost, but those who can afford to buy masks are being scrutinized by Covid and fined as well.
Police teams have also been visiting crowded markets, areas with high labor density to ensure compliance.
Around 200 street vendors and vendors from the Sabji Mandi area were selling vegetables without masks and have been arrested.
SSP, Hoshiarpur, Navjot Singh Mahal, reported that they have been calling on the masses to wear masks and maintain social distancing, but the council fell on deaf ears, causing them to start driving.
“With this move now, the area from where we had picked up people without masks in the first two days, is seeing a very smaller number of people without masks. The message of a trip to the civil hospital has reached the people and now they wear masks, ”said the SSP.
In Kapurthala district, the police have also launched a similar campaign with police teams together with sample collection teams from the Civil Hospital to capture those without masks and subject them to spot tests.
SSP, Kapurthala, Kanwardeep Kaur, said the sampling teams assigned with the police teams have performed 772 RT-PCR in recent days.
Meanwhile, the Doaba region, which has four districts out of a total of 22 districts in Punjab, has 35% of active Covid-19 cases and 26% of the state’s total deaths. Additionally, the region has reported 25 percent of the total confirmed cases in the state so far through March 22.
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