分类： bharat

Battling a surge in COVID-19 cases, the West Bengal government Tuesday decided to clamp a “total” lockdown in containment and buffer zones after merging them together, and impose tough restrictions on public mobility and trade from July 9, a top state official said.

The containment zones and buffer zones around them will be clubbed together and constitute a “broad-based” containment zone where a total lockdown will be imposed from 5 pm on Thursday, a government order signed by Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Alapan Bandyopadhyay said. 

The development comes after the state reported more than 800 cases for three successive days.

West Bengal has reported a total of 23,837 cases till Tuesday and the contagion has claimed the lives of 804 people, including those who had other concurrent illnesses called comorbidities in medical parlance.

“These broader containment zones may be subjected to strict lockdown and all offices, government and private, all non-essential activities, congregations, transportations and all marketing, industrial and trading activities be closed,” the order said.

Local authorities will try and arrange home delivery of essential commodities for the residents of these areas, he said.

“Residents of the containment zones may be exempted and prohibited from attending government and private offices: in fact, their ingress and egress may be strictly regulated,”
the order said.

It, however, did not mention how long the fresh spell of the shutdown will last.

A lockdown is currently in force essentially in the containment zones in the state and will last till July 31, if not extended further.

In the state capital, the Kolkata Municipal corporation and the city police will decide on the broad-based containment zones, while in districts the district magistrate and police superintendent will determine the areas.

In Kolkata alone, there are 33 containment zones, whereas in the neighbouring South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts there are 155 and 219 such zones.

The West Bengal government had allowed relaxations in the lockdown norms in May for which it had divided containment zones into three zones– affected zone, buffer zone and clean zone.

The state government’s decision drew sharp criticism from the opposition CPI(M) and the BJP, which slammed the TMC dispensation for being “clueless about the entire situation”.

“In all the notifications of the state and the central governments, it was clearly stated that strict lockdown would be implemented in all the containment zones, so what does this new order mean? The state government is clueless about what it has to do and what not to do,” said BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu said.

CPI(M) legislative party leader Sujan Chakraborty said had the state government implemented the lockdown sincerely since March the situation would have been much better.

The TMC, however, defended its government and blamed the Centre for imposing an “unplanned” lockdown.

“The present situation, both in the state and across the country, is solely due to the unplanned lockdown announced by the central government from March 25. The state government, in fact, brought the situation under control,” senior TMC leader and minister Rajib Banerjee said. 

A letter, reportedly written by a policeman who led the raid on gangster Vikas Dubey, has alleged links between the now suspended Chaubeypur station officer and the criminal whose gang killed eight cops in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

The purported letter, if found true, could be damning evidence that a tip-off to the absconding gangster about the raid was the handiwork of the senior police officer named in the letter.

The purported letter by Deputy Superintendent of Police Devendra Mishra, who led the raid and was killed along with seven other cops, surfaced on social media on Monday, alleging that station officer Vinay Tiwari had got a serious charge against Dubey dropped. However, the letter carried no serial number or date.

Police on Tuesday said there was no record of DSP Mishra having written any such letter.

Senior Superintendent of Police Dinesh Kumar Prabhu said that there was no record of the letter in which Mishra was supposed to have made the serious allegations against Tiwari.

The SSP said records at the offices of CO Bilhaur and SP rural were checked, but no such letter was found.

He further said that all office records were thoroughly checked in the confidential section of his own office, including police office and SSP camp office, but there was no entry of any letter.

“I also questioned the clerks who deal with the section, but they denied having any information regarding the letter,” SSP asserted.

The SSP, however, claimed that the matter is under investigation and efforts are on to probe the charges.

The police suspect that Tiwari may have tipped-off Dubey that a police team was on its way to arrest him.

According to the purported letter circulating on social media, Mishra had written that Dubey was booked on charges of rioting, extortion and criminal intimidation in a case.

“Showing sympathy to such a notorious criminal in such a way by the station officer and not taking any action brings the integrity of Vinay Tiwari into question,” it said.

It mentioned that it also came to light from other sources that Tiwari used to visit Dubey frequently.

Mishra’s alleged letter to the SSP said that if the station officer does not change his style of working, then a serious incident could occur.

Meanwhile, the police on Tuesday started house searches in Bikru villages in which they seized several documents related to Dubey, a senior police official said.

India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) analysed statistics for countries with more than 10,000 Covid-19 deaths and found that not only is India facing a high growth rate in terms of deaths, but also an upward sloping daily death curve.

ndia now has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases globally, and the eighth-highest number of deaths worldwide. However, in terms of growth rate of Covid-19 deaths, India’s numbers exceed any other country.

According to health ministry data, India had recorded 16,893 deaths on June 30, which spiked to 19,693 on July 6 – a growth rate of 2.6 per cent against the global average of 0.9 per cent in the same period.

On July 5, India recorded 613 deaths – its biggest single-day rise so far if we do not count reconciliations issued by Maharashtra on June 16 for which more than 2,000 deaths were recorded in a single day.

India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) analysed statistics for countries with more than 10,000 Covid-19 deaths and found that not only is India facing a high growth rate in terms of deaths, but also an upward sloping daily death curve.

Countries that follow India are Mexico (2.1 per cent), Brazil and Peru (1.8 per cent), Russia (1.7 per cent) and Iran (1.4 per cent). Even the United States, with the highest mortality of over 1.3 lakh, recorded a growth rate of 0.5 per cent in the last one week – lower than the global average.

India’s twin troubles

On one side, growth rate of Covid-19 fatalities is not coming down significantly in India, and on the other, it is faced by a spike in daily deaths. For the last three weeks, growth rate of Covid-19 deaths in the country has been above 2.5 per cent.

The seven-day rolling average of new deaths is also moving upwards. Based on our calculations, India’s seven-day rolling average of new deaths on July 6 was 460. This means on an average, India added 460 deaths every day in the last one week and we haven’t reached the peak yet! Just three months ago, daily deaths in India had averaged 10.