Covid challans: Excuses aplenty for flouting rules

Delhi Police and civil volunteers share the innumerable reasons that defaulters give when caught not following Covid protocols. It is due to the lax in appropriate behaviour that the number of challans in the city have sizeably gone up in the past few weeks.

We might be in the third wave of the pandemic, but the true meaning of Covid appropriate behaviour still seems to be taken up lightly by many. Despite the high number of Covid positive cases in Delhi, and an imposition of weekend curfew, the number of Covid challans has gone up. And special teams of Delhi Police, which were formed for the enforcement of Covid-19 protocols, reportedly collected challans worth ₹1 crore, across 11 districts, on last Saturday alone.

According to reports, ₹1 crore was collected in Covid challans last Saturday, which was a weekend curfew in the Capital. (Photo: ANI (For representational purposes only))

Mask na pehnne ke 10 bahane!

‘Pani pee rahe the isiliye utara tha mask’, ‘Sans nahi aa rahi thi’ ... these are some of the common excuses that police personnel get to hear with they catch people for violating Covid protocols. Even Delhi Police officials enlist some of the excuses as pretty common, such as the ones for not wearing mask. “Log bolte hain just abhi utara tha mask, and give us reasons like they wanted to drink water or that they couldn’t breathe. Ya bolenge ki kha rahe the ya mask abhi abhi toot ke gir gaya. There are very few people who accept that they have done anything wrong,” says Deepak Yadav, DCP New Delhi.

Curfew or just weekending?

“Weekend curfew ke time toh bahut log bahar hote hain,” adds Hemant, a volunteer with the Civil Defence Corps, whose duty is to ensure that people are following Covid protocols in Azadpur. “The minute we catch anyone without a mask, we tell them ya toh Covid ka check up karwao, ya phir challan bharo. We have stopped listening to excuses. A lot of teenage boys are out during the weekend curfew and they will give us reasons like, ‘Mummy ne doodh lene ke liye bheja hai!’ But now we can tell by looking at their face that who is lying and who has a genuine reason to be outside,” he says.

In fact when Shubham Singhal, an engineer from Paschim Vihar, had to step out to buy some medicines over the weekend, he says he was shocked to see the crowd outside. “I had to step out during the weekend curfew since we needed some important medicines. I had assumed that there won’t be any rush but that was so not the case. Compared to a weekday, roads were empty, but still there were many people outside and it just didn’t feel people are caring about the curfew that has been imposed for our benefit. I remember during the lockdown, one barely found people out on the roads, par abhi toh sab bahar ghum rahe hain bina kisi dar ke,” says Singhal.

Rule is a rule

“We had to travel urgently to meet my brother who lives in Delhi. It took us about 40 minutes to reach his place. My husband, my 3-year-old son and I were in the car. When we started, we were wearing masks but when we were about to reach we took them off because after the long drive we all feeling suffocated. Just then we were stopped by a cop. We tried to tell him ki abhi utara hai mask kyunki sir dard ho gaya tha pehne huye itne lambe raste mein. We tried a lot to convince him, and even apologised saying ki abhi pehen lete hain but he didn’t listen and we had to pay the fine,” says a Noida-based homemaker, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Author tweets @anjuri

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