Police patrol vans will now be equipped with a public address system to make people aware of the importance of staying indoors during the lockdown to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
State director general of police (DGP) M.V. Rao in a tweet to all district superintendents of police (SPs) has directed to use PA systems on patrols to create awareness among the public about the lockdown.
“Now the time has come to escalate the efforts to enforce complete #21daylockdown as some more new cases of infection were reported. Each one of us in @JharkhandPolice shall put in our best to stop #CoronavirusPandemic. Use PA system on patrols to create awareness in public,” the DGP tweeted on Thursday night.
With the detection of another Covid-19 positive case in Bokaro, the total number of confirmed cases has touched 14 with one death in the last few days.
M. L Meena, state additional director general of police (ADG) operations and police spokesperson, confirmed that police chiefs of all 24 districts have already started announcements using the police patrolling team on the importance of abiding by the lockdown and maintaining social distance.
“This is a critical period and with new cases being detected in some hotspots it is extremely important to ensure complete compliance of the lockdown,” said Meena.
“All the patrolling teams in the respective districts have to deal sternly with the lockdown violators and warn them using the PA system during their regular patrol. The flouters of the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC need to be warned. Most of the police stations in the districts have already started doing it.”
There are nearly 550 police stations in the state.
Jamshedpur city SP Subhash Chandra Jatt also said that several city police stations are already doing it.
“We started using public addresses to warn the violators and also request people to observe Shab-e-Barat in minority dominated area of Azadnagar in Mango yesterday (Thursday) and also today (Friday).
The local police stations have been asked to proactively use the PA system during patrolling to make people understand the need to stay at home during the lockdown period,” said Jatt.
East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ravi Shankar Shukla along with other senior administrative officials on Friday inspected the Professional Flats in Kadma which will be converted into a quarantine centre for people with Covid-19 symptoms.
N. K Lal, East Singhbhum additional district magistrate (law and order), said: “So far we have nearly 2,000 beds quarantine facilities in different blocks of the district. Still we want to keep such flats of Tata Steel ready for emergencies. We inspected the arrangements at the flats today (Friday).”
In a related development, the district East Singhbhum district administration has sealed all the interstate and inter-district checkpoints at 12 locations of the district.
