‘GOA’ is helping people flout the lockdown norms in Guwahati.
With the Assam police cracking down on people who had ventured out of their homes “unnecessarily” after the lockdown began, by levying fines on vehicle-borne violators and in several cases even seizing their vehicles, some locals resorted to sticking hand written notes on the front and rear of their motorcycles and scooters. And a few of these notes proclaim: “On GOA duty”. GOA expands to Government of Assam.
Some of the other notes read “On GOI duty”, “On medical duty”, “Request patient attendant service”.
“The documents of such people are being checked at check-posts across the city and action is taken if they do not have a valid reason to drive or ride,” Munna Prasad Gupta, Guwahati’s Commissioner of Police told The Hindu . “Some people have taken passes from the authorities concerned while those in essential services and exempted from lockdown restrictions are not disturbed,” he added.
Till Monday afternoon, the police had realised ₹5.64 lakh in fines from lockdown violators driving vehicles and detained 1,626 vehicles as well as 425 people.
Still, those with knowledge on the lanes and bylanes of the city were often found giving the police the slip. The lanes are where most grocery shops — some selling vegetables too — were attracting mostly masked locals who were seen discussing coronavirus conspiracy theories and their chances of surviving the “killer flu”.
At one store, anxiety to ensure the essentials had not run out saw a few shoppers forsake the distancing norms and crowd the counter. “Please stand apart for your own good and mine,” Tarunnagar resident Krishna Das requested a middle-aged man, who started to argue before others in the queue shushed him up.
But the Fancybazar and adjoining Machhkhowa areas remain a cause of concern for local residents. These two areas comprise the commercial hub of the northeast, not only that of Guwahati, and had witnessed a near-stampede when the administration relaxed the lockdown restrictions temporarily on March 28.
“Rows of vegetable vendors, buyers and wholesalers and their vehicles crowd the street where my house is located,” said Musaddar Hussain, who lives on Fayaz Ahmed Road in Machhkhowa. “The police arrive only after the business is done from early morning to noon. We live in such dread that we have double-locked our gate,” he added.
Mr. Gupta asserted that the police was ensuring that the shops, which were operating, were following the social distancing norms.
The near-empty roads, however, have not been an insurance against accidents. On Monday night, a web portal reporter named Dimpy Kashyap was killed when a two-wheeler she was riding pillion on reportedly hit an electric pole. Hours later, a car hit and injured a barking deer that came out of its habitat to explore the Noonmati area of the city.
