Rigorous policing helped make A & N coronavirus-free: DGP
Port Blair, May 17 () Rigorous policing tostrictly impose lockdown restrictions has helped Andaman andNicorbar islands become free of the killer coronaviruspandemic, its police chief Dependra Pathak said.
All the 33 COVID-19 patients have been cured and sentto their homes from hospitals a week ago and since then therehas been no report of any new case of infection in theislands, Pathak said on Saturday.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territorycomprising of a group of 572 islands of which 37 are inhabitedat the juncture of Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea.
Novel coronavirus was reported in the islands when nineparticipants of Delhi's Nizamuddin Tablighi Jamaatcongregatoion returned here on March 24.
Two of the Jamaatis who had tested positive were swiftlymoved to hospital from the airport here itself when theyreturned and the rest seven were sent to institutionalquarantine, the director general of police said.
"It is during interrogation of these people that thedetails of the Tablighi Jamaat in mid-March meet came to lightand accordingly we informed Delhi about it," Pathak, who hadhiself served with the Delhi police for long, told .
"We managed well the first wave of infection with thearrival of the Jamaatis, but unfortunately two others who hadgone to Chennai tested positive for the virus on return", hesaid.
The two persons infected 24 others and the diseasespread taking the count of coronavirus positive patients to 33a week ago. "This forced us to go for the rigorous containmentexercise," Pathak said.
Under the exercise the police strictly enforced thelockdown related restrictions which were promulgated by theCentre across the country.
The tough policing resulted in the arrest of 190violators of lockdown rules till May 15, registration of 200cases and realisation of Rs 30 lakh by way of penalty, the DGPsaid.
The police, which has its presence in all the inhabitedislands of the union territory, meticulously implemented theshutdown norms and cracked the whip on the violators, he said.
As a part of the measure to contain COVID-19 theAndaman and Nicobar police also kept a close watch over anyinfiltration bid in the islands, which have borders withIndonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, Pathak said.
Inter-islands movement was stopped since March 21 andthe door was shut to tourists from March 16 onwards in view ofthe pandemic,he said.
With the improvement in the situation and in thebackdrop of Union government's relaxations in lockdown-relatedcurbs, the UT is giving one-time and one-way opportunity tothe stranded people to return to their homes in the differentislands.
The island adminstration is also making arrangements tosend ships to Chennai and Kolkata ports soon to ferry itscitizens stuck in different states during the lockdowntriggered by the pandemic, Pathak said.