Over two dozen people were booked for unauthorisedly protesting against cremation of dead Covid-19 patients at a crematorium here, when a statewide lockdown was in force, officials said on Monday.

A group of people residing near Bansghat crematorium came on the street on Sunday against burning of bodies of coronavirus deceased.

Seeing burning of the body of a dead Covid patient the previous day, the agitators took out a procession demanding that the last rites of people dying of the infection be done at a fair distance away from where it is conducted at present.

Police registered an FIR against 26 people for staging protest without prior permission, a Patna district administration release said.

The case has been registered under various sections of the IPC and the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, at Buddha Colony police station of the capital city.

The FIR has been lodged on the basis of a letter written by the magistrate, station house officer of the police station Ravi Shankar Singh said.