The CBD Belapur police have booked a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator from Nerul and 17 others for violating lockdown rules and going for a morning walk to Parsik Hill on Saturday.
Ravindra Ithape is also the Leader of the House of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation. “We received information that people were going for morning walks to Parsik Hill and our patrol team caught them,” senior police inspector Dinkar Mohite said.
However, Mr. Ithape denied the allegation and said he was going to meet a patient at Apollo Hospital at Parsik Hill. He said since he was wearing shorts, the police mistook that he was out for a walk. He said he was not aware of the case registered against him till the news channels reported it on Monday. Mr. Ithape and the 17 others were booked under sections of Indian Penal Code and the Epidemic Diseases Act.
In another case, the Kamothe police have booked a BJP worker and four associates for conducting a sanitisation drive at Sector 19 in Kamothe without official permission. The accused, Happy Singh, who is also a social worker, conducted the drive from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Photos of the drive were circulated widely on social media. Bhavesh Chandane, sanitisation inspector attached to the Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC), received the photos on WhatsApp on Sunday and he found that Mr. Singh had not taken PMC’s permission to conduct the drive.
PMC deputy municipal commissioner Jamir Langarekar said, “As per a notification issued on April 2 by PMC municipal commissioner Ganesh Deshmukh, any person wanting to conduct sanitisation drives should take permission. It was noticed that in the name of social service, various NGOs and social workers came together without maintaining social distancing to distribute essentials and conduct sanitisation drives.”
Mr. Chandane filed a complaint against Mr. Singh at Kamothe police station. Kamothe police have served him a notice and booked him under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Epidemic Diseases Act.
