The Greater Chennai Police (GCP) on May 16, Sunday, registered 3,028 cases for violation of lockdown guidelines and seized 3,252 vehicles that were plying by flouting rules. This comes just two days after Tamil Nadu tightened its lockdown restrictions, limiting vehicular movement, timings of shops, etc on May 14. Just on Sunday, the GCP collected Rs 4,67,000 in fines from violators.
The GCP also registered 2,485 cases against people who were not wearing masks and 278 cases against those who were not following physical distancing protocols. About 42 shops were sealed on Sunday for being kept open beyond the permitted time limits.
On Saturday, the GCP registered 1,933 cases against those violating lockdown norms and seized 446 vehicles. The Law and Order teams registered 1,095 cases in total and seized 2,806 vehicles.
Chennai Commissioner of Police Shankar Jiwal, IPS, had issued orders to set up check-points at various places in the city to monitor people’s movement and lockdown violations. A total of 200 check-points come under the control of the Law and Order Police and another 118 under the control of the Traffic Police. Additionally, about 360 patrol vehicles have been deployed to cover the entire city during the lockdown period.
It was also announced that legal action would be taken against individuals for not wearing face masks, not maintaining physical distance, and for going out in vehicles without a valid reason during the lockdown. In Tamil Nadu, the lockdown is in effect until May 24, Wednesday.
As soon as the lockdown was implemented in the state on May 10, Director General of Police (DGP) JK Tripathy deployed 10,000 police personnel for bandobast duty in Chennai. The DGP also gave strict instructions to the police personnel not to use lathi-charge to enforce norms and to use drones to monitor long stretches.