Covid-19: Section 144 imposed in Rajasthan’s Dholpur; all gatherings banned
The district magistrate (DM) of Rajasthan’s Dholpur announced on Thursday that Section 144 is being imposed in the city due to the current situation of the coronavirus pandemic, according to news agency ANI. The order, DM RK Jaiswal said in a notification, will come into effect from August 20, and stay in force till further instructions.
“I am satisfied that prima facie Section 144 under the Code of Criminal Procedure needs to be imposed in Dholpur to keep people living here safe from Covid-19. Therefore, I announce a ban on all kinds of public, social, political, entertainment, educational cultural and religious gatherings, processions, or festivals,” a rough translation of Jaiswal’s order, issued in Hindi, read.
Violators will be penalised under Sections 188, 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Sections 51-60 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, as well as relevant sections of the Rajasthan Epidemic Diseases Act, 2020, the notification further warned.
Section 144 empowers a district magistrate to ban gatherings of five or more people at one place.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan logged 12 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, while there was no new addition to its related death toll, according to a health department bulletin. Thus far, 953,981 people have tested positive in Rajasthan, of whom 944,874 have recovered, while 8954 patients have succumbed to the virus. The number of active cases, meanwhile, has risen to 153, according to official data.
Of the 12 new cases, Dholpur reported one, while four each were reported from Jaipur and Alwar. Bharatpur, Bikaner and Pali contributed one case each.
