‘GOA’ is dodging the police in locked down Guwahati.
The police have been cracking down on people across Assam who ventured out of their homes “unnecessarily” after the lockdown began.
₹5.64 lakh in fines
Till Monday afternoon, the police collected ₹5.64 lakh in fines from traffic violators and detained 1,626 vehicles besides 425 people.
This made many vehicle users, specially two-wheel vehicle riders, glue hand-written notes on the front and rear of their motorcycles and scooties. A few of them read: “On GOA duty”.
‘GOA’ expands to Government of Assam.
Other such notes read “On GOI duty”, “On medical duty”, “Request patient attendant service” and so on.
Some have managed to get past the police, some not.
“The documents of such people are being checked and action is taken if they do not have a valid reason to drive or ride. Some people have taken passes from the authorities while those in essential services and exempted from restrictions are not disturbed,” Guwahati Commissioner of Police Munna Prasad Gupta told The Hindu.
Those who know the lanes and bylanes of the city often give the police the slip. The lanes are where grocery shops – some selling vegetables too – attract mostly masked people for discussing conspiracy theories and their chances of surviving the “killer flu”.
Many adhere to social distancing but some forget in a bid to be the first to take the foodstuff home. “Please stand apart for your own good and mine,” Tarunnagar resident Krishna Das requested a middle-aged man.
But the Fancybazar and adjoining Machhkhowa areas remain a cause of concern for the local residents. These two areas are the commercial hub of the Northeast, and had witnessed a near-stampede when the administration relaxed the lockdown restrictions temporarily on March 28.
“Vegetable vendors, buyers and wholesalers and their vehicles crowd the street where my house is located. The police arrive only after the business is done. We live in such dread that we have double-locked our gate,” said Musaddar Hussain, who lives on Fayaz Ahmed Road in Machhkhowa.
Mr. Gupta denied the police were allowing vegetable trucks into the city and claimed they were ensuring the shops allowed to operate were following the social distancing norms.
The near-empty roads, however, have not been insurance against accidents. On Monday night, a web portal reporter, Dimpy Kashyap, died when the two-wheeler she was on 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.
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