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Residents look to dodge lockdown, Uttarakhand police turn focus on ambulances
Ambulances are being used by people looking to stealthily cross state borders by hoodwinking police officials.
In a bid to cross the interstate border between Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, guarded heavily due to the lockdown provisions, stranded people are using ambulances to dodge the police, said state officials.
Four such cases have been reported in the Kumaon region so far. Police have not only lodged cases against the accused but also put them under quarantine in Udham Singh Nagar district.
“These stranded people are hiring ambulances while crossing the border in a bid to dodge the police. Four such incidents have been reported in US Nagar since the lockdown was imposed in the state on March 23,” an official said.
The latest incident was reported in Kashipur on Tuesday, where six persons including three women were found to have entered the state in an ambulance, intercepted later by the police.
When the police asked the commuters for relevant permission, the driver failed to produce the document. Police took them to LD Bhatt hospital in Kashipur for quarantining, an official said.
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One of the members of the family said they had gone to Delhi for the delivery of a child but were stuck there due to the lockdown. Since there was no public transport available along with a ban on traveling, the family hired an ambulance to dodge the police in a bid to return to their home in Uttarakhand, police said.
Kashipur police also came across a similar case on Monday, when a person from Bansphodan Colony travelled to Delhi in an ambulance and also used it to bring back his wife and a child, who were stuck in Delhi. Police have lodged an FIR against him and the ambulance driver.
“We have booked the accused and the driver of the ambulance for violating the lockdown. The family of the accused has been isolated in the nearby hospital and a case has been registered against the accused and the driver,” said Rajesh Bhatt, additional superintendent of police (ASP), Kashipur
