Weekend lockdown in Mumbai: We found compliance from citizens, says police

Vegetable vendors at Savarkar Mandai in Dadar barely saw any buyers on Saturday, as people stayed put at home. Pic/Suresh Karkera

Mumbai Police hit the street running on Saturday to ensure the implementation of weekend lockdown in the city. Local arms, home guards and reserve forces joined hands with the city force as well. Nakabandi and rigorous checks were carried out to verify the reason why Mumbaikars were out and about.

During the lockdown, no public movement except medical work has been allowed between Friday 8 pm and Monday 7 am. Orders have also been given to the police to take care that there is no crowding at venues, where sale of essential commodities was being done.

"Most of the force was in the streets today carrying out checks and nakabandis. Overall, we found compliance from citizens," said DCP (PRO) S Chaitanya. "Around 500 cops from the local arms division, 1,000 home guards and five companies of State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) were deployed across the city," he added.

The top brass had instructed all cops to talk to citizens in a civilised manner at the time of bandobast. If anyone was found breaking the rules, action was to be taken, but in a decent way. During the last lockdown, there were many incidents of high-handedness reported, and officials have instructed constables not to use force on citizens.

Things seemed solemn on Saturday morning, with the city waking up to remembering this time last year, wherein a complete lockdown was in play. With home delivery of food items permitted by the BMC over the weekend, most of the two-wheelers on the streets seemed to belong to either food aggregator companies or restaurant delivery services.