India's 1.3 billion citizens will go under 'total lockdown' for 21 days to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, warning that anyone going outside risked inviting the virus into their homes.?
Since the announcement of the total lockdown police across the nation are getting ready?to deal with some unruly cases of people flouting rules.?
To deal with such citizens, a video posted by a senior police official shows constable literally sanitising the lathis that will be used to flog people. That's the level of fear among people and however funny it may, in these uncertain times people really don't know what to expect.?
IPS officer Pankaj Jain tweeted a video to show ¡°full tayri (full preparation)¡± to enforce lockdowns in which a policeman is seen spraying disinfectant on batons before they are taken.?
Police in India's northern city of Meerut are making citizens who break the rule hold up signs reading, "I am a friend of coronavirus," or "I am the enemy of society," before posting their pictures on Twitter.?
Another video that the police official shared showed how the Punjab Police were punishing those who violated the lockdown, and was cheered on social media.??
Mosque worker Mohammad Alim, 40, said he took a widow and her three sons to a police station in the city on his motorbike on Monday night to report an altercation with neighbours.
"When I reached the police station, the inspector handed me that shaming sign and clicked my picture," Alim told Reuters.
"I feel scared. I do not know who to complain to now," added Alim, who also accused officers of verbally abusing him.?Meerut police tweeted a picture of Alim holding a sign that read "I am a friend of coronavirus" with the caption, "Some people do not care about society's safety."
The police Twitter feed had nine more similar pictures, with comments in Hindi, including, "I do not believe in the law of the country" and "I do not care about my family or society."??
Health researchers have warned that more than a million people in India could be infected with the coronavirus by mid-MayIndia has already severed international flight links and will stop domestic air services at midnight in a bid to halt the spread.
Police? broke up the longest-running protest against a new citizenship law in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh. Dozens of people, many of them women, had been staging a sit-in protest since early December on a street in the Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood. In India 536 are confirmed cases and there are reports of 11 deaths so far.?
Inputs Reuters