‘SMS police if you want to go out of house’

‘SMS police if you want to go out of house’

It’s valid for three hours

13/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,THENI

Next time you want to step out of your house to go to a market or visit a doctor or anywhere in Theni district, then you have to give an SMS to 9488056600. In the next few seconds, you will get a reply with a six digit number after which alone you can go out to the destination.

The SMS, which contains a QR code, is issued by the Theni district police and it’s valid for three hours.

The SP Sai Saran Tejaswi said on Tuesday that with the COVID-19 pandemic, it had been proposed to restrict the movement of residents. Unless there was any utmost requirement to step out, people should stay indoors as it would help the administration to break the virus chain and ensure a healthy environment around.

By and large, the district had been containing the virus effectively so far. To ensure that it was totally free of the cases and to move to the green zone, such measures were taken, Mr. Tejaswi said and added that the intention of the police was not to harass or harm the people. The custodians of law were present only to help the law-abiding citizens and expected the people to support the machinery voluntarily.

The SP also said that during this kind of medical emergency, the challenges could be overcome only with the public support. Though certain restrictions were being relaxed after the public wanted, the police felt that there was a rise in the movement of residents. Inquiries at random in the district indicated that not many had a convincing reply for having come out of their houses.

The district has 59 positive cases of COVID-19 and 42 among them have been discharged.