Nagpur: Following orders of State Government, Nagpur Police on Sunday launched a crack down against the cinema halls, gyms and swimming pools to contain spread of Coronavirus. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Special Branch Shweta Khedkar informed new media that reports from 21 police stations were received till 10 pm. According to statistics given by the DCP, the police have checked 24 theaters and halls and 22 were found closed. Similarly, 68 gyms out of 133 checked by the police were found closed and seven swimming pools out of nine were found locked. “Statistics from rest of remaining 12 police station would be received late in the night,” she said.
“We are requesting all these commercial establishment to follow the government orders to contain spread of Coronavirus,” she said. It may be mentioned that Director General of Police (DGP) Subodh Jaiswal on Saturday issued an order to Nagpur, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pimpri Chinchwad and Pune police commissionerates to strictly implement the orders of state government of a closure of cinema halls, gyms and swimming pools till March 31.
A senior police official informed new media that stern action would be taken against owners of these commercial establishments for not following government orders. “All police stations have been directed to take stock of number of cinema halls, gyms and swimming pools operating in their jurisdictions.
The police on Saturday itself gave notices to these establishments for temporary closure,” the officials said. The announcement was made by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who joined his counterparts from several states who have undertaken such drastic measures in an attempt to keep the novel Coronavirus threat at bay. Addressing the Maharashtra assembly, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had said that the government has implemented the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 from midnight in order to allow it to implement these emergency measures.
Thackeray also urged companies to allow their staff to work from home. The police are also taking measures by wearing masks while on-duty. Cyber Cell closely monitoring rumour-mongers Senior police officials of city police orders Cyber Cell officials to initiated strict action against those spreading rumours about the novel Coronavirus outbreak. The administration have made preparations to tackle the situation but rumours were being spread on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook etc, which may lead to panic. The offenders may attract Section 54 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and Provisions of Information Technology Act.
Section 54 the Act lays down that “whoever makes or circulates a false alarm or warning as to disaster or its severity or magnitude, leading to panic, shall on conviction, be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to one year or with fine.” Police to launch crackdown on black-marketing of masks The city police have also launched crackdown on black-marketing of masks and ‘fake’ sanitisers in wake of the novel Coronavirus outbreak. On Saturday, two persons were held by the police for selling ‘fake’ hand sanitizers. Many bottles of the hand sanitizers were seized by the police during the action.
