Day 2 of lockdown better across TN as people learn to stay indoors

Fewer People Found Out On Roads, Say Cops

TIMES NEWS NETWORK  27.03.2020

Day 2 of the 21-day lockdown saw better adherence to the rules across the state as fewer people stepped out of their houses on Thursday.

Police, on their part, intensified the crackdown on the curfew violators and booked hundreds of people who were found on roads.

In the first part of the day, people, mostly men, were out on the roads to buy essentials. But by afternoon, the number of vehicles on the roads thinned and customers in grocery stores dropped considerably.

The Madurai Central Market, which was closed due to overcrowding on Wednesday morning, was opened on Thursday morning. Once again, there was an influx of buyers and despite efforts by the authorities to convince people to maintain a safe social distance, they did not comply and the market was shut again.

To contain crowding in vegetable markets, the district authorities have now decided to restrict market operational hours to four hours. “This will help people realize that the shops will be open for four hours and they may not run out of stock. At the same time, we can prevent people venturing out throughout the day in the name of buying essentials,” said a corporation official.

In some places, people who stepped out to buy vegetables and essentials had to return empty-handed and some retail stores and farmers markets were found closed. “I have run out of some essentials. I couldn’t find any shops open since I went in the afternoon. I heard farmers markets were closed too. I have to try my luck tomorrow,” A Sakthi, a resident of K Pudur in Madurai said.

Like Madurai, several other places across the state too witnessed curfew in real sense on Thursday as there were fewer persons on road, fewer shops opened and people observed the mandatory social distance while waiting at shops. Police instructed the shops, where there were more people flouting the social distance norm, to be closed.

With the backlash coming from various quarters, police, however, stopped beating curfew violators as they did on Wednesday. Instead, they booked cases on several people. In Coimbatore, more than 100 cases were booked, while in Salem they booked 164 people. They were arrested and let off on bail. Salem city police commissioner T Senthil Kumar said it was mostly youth who violate the rules.

“We have issued them enough warnings. We will start acting tough against repeat offenders,” he said. A few youths caught by police roaming on roads were made to do 200 sit-ups.