Kerala Police Under Fire For Penalising Struggling Population In The Name Of Lockdown Violation

Over the past few years managed to create an image for themselves on social media. From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram and Clubhouse, through their witty memes and informative posts Kerala police cultivated an image of Police Maman (Police Uncle) on social media and their accounts are among the most followed by any police department in India.

But the lockdown is undoing the careful image-building the social media team had managed.

That is because the cops on the ground are not that friendly as the police uncle on social media.

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In fact, in the past few weeks, there has been a slew of incidents from across the state where the cops were caught penalising lockdown violaters, who may have done it unintentionally or may not have been at fault at all.

Case for questioning a penalty

The most notable incident happened last month in Kollam when a teenage girl was booked for obstruction of duty when she questioned the cops for penalising an elderly man who was standing in a queue in front of an ATM, accusing him of not following social distancing.

Despite the intimidation by the cops, the teenager stood her ground and after the video of the incident went viral, the police reportedly reached out to her through some politicians offering to withdraw the case if she apologized. The girl, identified as Gauri Nanda refused the offer saying that she was never at fault.

Fish thrown into wasteland

Just days later, another video surfaced where a woman from Kollam alleged that the cops had thrown her fish basket worth Rs 16,000 into wasteland accusing her of violating lockdown.

The 65-year-old woman, Maryamma, like many small traders and daily wage earners had been struggling to put food on the table due to the lockdown. She had borrowed money to buy the fish, which she hoped to sell and make some profit. But the cops threw her fish away claiming that a crowd had gathered around her and thus lockdown was violated.

Cutting grass for cow

In another incident of high-handedness Narayanan, a farmer from Kasaragod was fined Rs 2,000 by the police when he had stepped out of his house to cut grass for his cow as his wife who had tested positive for COVID-19 was in home isolation.

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Five people in a shop

Just a couple of days ago an elderly man who runs a small grocery shop in a very remote village in Palakkad was fined Rs 2000 by police for lockdown violation after five people were seen inside his shop.

According to the shop owner, his is the only shop in that village and he hardly makes Rs 500 in a day from the business.

As the social media pages of the Kerala police got flooded with complaints about their excesses, state DGP Anil Kant on Tuesday directed the District Police chiefs to enforce the law in the most dignified manner when imposing restrictions.

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The sub-divisional police officers would keep a close watch on the matter, Kant said in a circular.

Police officers who carry out Covid and traffic duties are working in very difficult situations, but the state police chief reminded the police officers not to overreact when enforcing restrictions.