On the first day of lockdown in Bihar on Wednesday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar appealed to people to postpone weddings and other social functions for some time to break the chain of the COVID-19 pandemic. Police were seen caning people who defied the restrictions in several districts.
The lockdown has been imposed till May 15 with the exception of essential services.
“The government is taking proactive steps to ensure people’s safety from the pandemic. It had to take the tough decision of imposing a lockdown from May 5 to 15. Please cooperate in the fight against the virus by following anti-COVID-19 rules”, Mr. Kumar tweeted in Hindi in the first part of his post. He added, “Amid an unprecedented situation triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, a request to the people of the State is that happy social functions like weddings where people congregate from several places, should be postponed for some time to help in breaking the chain of corona transmission. This will be in the interest of your family and society”.
Court order on May 6
A division bench of the Patna High Court while hearing public interest litigation petitions, had asked the government to “enforce a lockdown or the court would take appropriate decision on it”. The court had also observed orally, “if the situation is not controlled by you [government], hand over the health infrastructure to the armed forces”. The court is likely to pass an order on the PILs on May 6.
The lockdown rules say that not more than 50 guests are allowed in weddings, while at a funeral only 20 are allowed. Shops selling groceries are allowed to open for four hours from 7 am to11 am.
On Wednesday, police in districts like Nawada, Patna, Lakhisarai, Siwan and Darbhanga were seen caning people and verifying their credentials to enforce the lockdown. In Patna, police officials were seen appealing to people on mike not to venture out unnecessarily. Some local people complained that policemen have been caning them even before hearing their reason for coming out.
Bihar has been seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, with the positivity rate hovering around 10% for the last one week. Till Tuesday, the number of active cases was 11,0430 and total 52,3841 positive cases. The recovery rate has been 78.36% so far.
