Meandering through barely four-foot wide streets packed with houses on either side in the temple town of Srikalahasti on a mission to identity people with COVID-19 symptoms and the contacts of positive cases is not a child’s play.
For young police officer A. Sadiq Ali, a red sanders operations specialist who was instrumental in the seizure of logs worth over ₹1,000 crore and arrest of a dozen international smugglers, joining the battle against coronavirus is a new challenge.
Chosen for the task
The spiralling cases in this 3-km radius temple town has prompted Anantapur (Range) DIG Kranti Rana Tata to choose Mr. Sadiq Ali, inspector of police (Piler), for the task.
His recent achievement of nabbing the accused in the Madanapalle girl child’s rape and murder case at Chhattisgarh after a 10-day pursuit has endeared him to the people of Srikalahasti and that initially played to his advantage.
Armed with a small list of positive cases, Mr. Sadiq Ali went about convincing their family members, relatives and friends who moved in close proximity, to go for quarantine.
Wherever necessary call data was collected and suspect cases were zeroed in on. As it turned out, many of them had tested positive.
It is felt that his action plan has largely helped to keep the virus at bay.
Effective strategy
Mr. Sadiq Ali focussed on convincing suspect cases that there was nothing to feel guilty about it at all. In fact, his message to them, “You are the warriors against an unseen enemy,” seemed to have worked like magic winning him the cooperation of many local people.
He not only succeeded in removing the misconceptions among the public that getting quarantined is like hell but also managed to turn over many local youth as his reliable informants.
“I was accustomed to tough physical situations, mental stress and dealing with notorious criminals. But fighting the invisible enemy for public safety is something unique and even more challenging,” the officer says.
