After a brief burst of activity in the morning, when grocery stores and meat and dairy outlets were allowed to operate from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., Bengaluru hunkered down for the weekend curfew. In Fraser Town, most grocery stores saw only a few customers buying last-minute necessities, though there were longer queues outside dairy and butcher stalls.
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“We did brisk business yesterday as people stocked up on supplies, but it was nothing like the panic buying we saw last year. This morning, I hardly had any customers,” said a kirana store owner, who like many others on the road was downing the shutters even before the 10 a.m. deadline.
In Banashankari III Stage, several grocery stores were also found shut before 10 a.m. Only milk booths and a couple of vegetable vendors were open. However there were not many shoppers. “Most people finished shopping last evening. We had crowds yesterday,” said a vegetable shop owner in CKA layout.
There were few cars even on arterial roads due to heavy police presence. “Security has been heightened in and around the city to enforce curfew. Nakabandis have been put up at the major junctions and flyovers shut down to contain unnecessary traffic flow. The situation is peaceful and no untoward incidents reported so far,” said a police official.
Since Friday night, when the curfew came into effect, the police had seized 108 vehicles including 96 two-wheelers, and shut down 41 commercial establishments for operating illegally.
Activities come to a standstill in Mangaluru
Activities in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts came to a standstill with the weekend curfew being imposed to prevent spread of COVID-19 .
Milk-, vegetable vendors and sellers of other essential products too downed the shutters by 9.30 a.m. in Mangaluru resulting in a total lockdown. While private city buses were off the road, few skeletal services of KSRTC were operational.
The Mangaluru City police has set up checkposts at 54 places in the city including major junctions such as Clock Tower junction where about 12 personnel were posted to stop unnecessary movement of vehicles. The vehicle movement was barred on the road between Clock Tower and. A.B.Shetty Circle and diverted to Clock Tower Junction- Rao and Rao Circle road stretch.
Police Commissioner N. Shashi Kumar said 35 mobile squads with about three squads for each police station operate. A total of 1,000 police personnel have been deployed. The police will seize vehicles that are seen unnecessarily moving on the roads, he said.
In the last one week 1,400 cases have been booked for not wearing masks. As many as 80 cases under Epidemic Diseases Act, including 30 cases on Friday, have been booked, he said.
Published - April 24, 2021 01:01 pm IST
