The number of containment zones in Calcutta went up by three on Friday, taking the total to 28 in the Calcutta municipal area, according to the government’s list of such zones.

The new places added to the list were portions of Garcha Road, Maniktala Main Road and Ramakrishna Samadhi Road in Kankurgachhi. The lockdown will come into effect in these places from Saturday morning, police said.

A place or a stretch of road is turned into a containment zone only if about four-five or more cases are reported in the area in two weeks, a Calcutta Municipal Corporation official said.

The other 25 containment zones, where lockdown came into effect at 5pm on Thursday, showed contrasting pictures of enforcement of the lockdown on Friday. In some of these zones no one was allowed to step outside while in some people freely moved in and out.

In Kasba’s Swinhoe Lane, residents went beyond the barricades and no cop tried to stop them. In Behala’s Sakherbazar, too, some people stepped out of the containment zone, a resident of Baidyapara said. In Salt Lake, too, residents said they saw some people stepping out of and some outsiders entering the containment zone.

In Bhowanipore’s Chakraberia, though, the enforcement was strict.

The authorities’ response in arranging essential supplies varied. In both Sakherbazar and Swinhoe Lane, the police had asked residents to call the police station in an emergency. In places like in Chakraberia, WhatsApp groups for apartments had been created.

“I had to take my mother to hospital in the morning. I had prepared myself with her prescription and medical documents… to show if the police stopped me,” Soma Chakraborty, a resident of Swinhoe Lane, said. “I was a little tense… if they would be convinced about the emergency medical need.

“But the two policemen posted at the barricade did not stop me or ask anything. There were many who were going out through the gaps in the barricade. The cops stopped only a person on a scooter from entering the containment zone.”

In several containment areas in Salt Lake, residents apparently sent their helps and chauffeurs to nearby markets to buy groceries, essential supplies and medicines though the civic body and the police had repeatedly announced that no one should go beyond the barricades.

A resident of BE Block in Salt Lake’s Sector I, where a containment zone has been created using guardrails, said he had seen several men and women pushing the guardrails and stepping out. Avishek Chakraborty, 36, said he was on his way to a medicine shop when he saw several people stepping out of the containment zone.

“There were no cops posted near the guardrails and no one to monitor the entry/exit of people,” Chakraborty said.

The picture was similar in the FD, FE and IB blocks where there were no cops.

An official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation told Metro that several residents of one the blocks had called him up to say that people were entering and leaving the containment zones as they wished. “I called up residents living in the containment areas and asked them not to step out or send their helps outside,” the official said.

In Kestopur’s Samarpally and Duttabad, both of which are containment zones, people were seen stepping out and getting in at will. Similar scenes played out in Dakshindari near Lake Town and near Nagerbazar.

An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said cops were patrolling containment zones and repeatedly asking people not to step out. “Whenever we spotted someone trying to get in or out we stopped them,” the officer said.

The picture was different, though, in Bhowanipore’s Chakraberia and in the Balaram Dey Street area in Girish Park. Aditi Kundu, a resident of Balaram Dey Street, said some of her neighbours who tried to step out of the containment zones to attend office were stopped by cops.

Residents of Chakraberia said there was barely any movement in their place since the “new” lockdown came into effect from Thursday.

“There is a doctor in our neighbourhood who was allowed to operate his chamber. But I am not sure whether there were any patients,” a resident said.

Calcutta police commissioner Anuj Sharma visited some of the containment zones in the city on Friday.

Eden quarantine plea

Police have sought the Cricket Association of Bengal’s permission to set up a makeshift quarantine centre inside Eden Gardens for cops testing positive for Covid-19.

The police have sought a written permission on Friday to set up makeshift quarantine centres under the galleries of blocks E, F, G, H and J with provision for a kitchen on the Eden premises.

A meeting was held between CAB officials and the police brass at Lalbazar on Friday following a communication from the office of joint commissioner of police (headquarters) Subhankar Sinha Sarkar to CAB president Abhishek Dalmiya. It was decided that blocks E, F, G and H will be used to set up the temporary facility while Block J may be allotted for the purpose if more space was needed.

More than 400 Calcutta police personnel have tested positive for the virus till now.