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Police hit hard by second wave, 33 dead so far
PATNA The second wave of coronavirus has hit the Bihar Police harder than the first one, leaving 33 of its members dead in just two months of this year, April and May, compared to 26 fatalities reported last year since the pandemic outbreak in March 2020
PATNA
The second wave of coronavirus has hit the Bihar Police harder than the first one, leaving 33 of its members dead in just two months of this year, April and May, compared to 26 fatalities reported last year since the pandemic outbreak in March 2020.
An official in the state police headquarters said exposure to the public during the assembly election duty in the neighbouring West Bengal and Assam may also have led to a spike in infection among the police personnel.
The second wave has also hit the force’s upper echelons and several top officials are in home isolation. Meetings are now being held online. “It’s a worrisome situation for the police department as we are not able to work in a systematic way as we used to because of this virus,” the official said.
According to the information obtained from police headquarters, the 33 police persons who died were from various ranks, from inspector to chowkidar. Around 2,400 have been infected in the second wave, of which 150 were hospitalised, some in serious condition. There are around 445 active cases in the state police department.
The number of Covid cases among police personnel last year wasn’t immediately available.
Bihar Police has a strength of 80,000, including personnel posted in about 1,100 police stations across the state and other police wings such as CID, special branch, STF, Vigilance, government rail police, etc.
Additional director general (headquarters) Jitendra Kumar said, “We have observed that vaccination has been effective in containing infections or its impact on our personnel. We are trying our best to get all our personnel vaccinated as soon as possible. About 90% have received the first dose, and of them, 75% have received the second dose.”
Bihar Police Association’s state president Mrityunjay Kumar Singh has requesting the state police chief to make special arrangements for treatment of police personnel and their families. He also urged to deploy a police officer with a dedicated mobile number at the headquarters to coordinate with the affected family members of the police personnel.
