Kolkata: Stopped for lockdown flout, woman attacks cops

KOLKATA: A woman, her friend and the driver of the app cab they were in were arrested on Wednesday when they broke the lockdown protocol and ventured out on the road, allegedly lying to cops that they were going to buy medicines. When stopped at a police naka near the Punjab National Bank crossing at Salt Lake, the woman got into a confrontation with the policemen, pushed one of the officers and allegedly smeared his uniform with blood from an old cut on her forehead.
The cops on the spot as well as onlookers recorded the entire incident on multiple video cameras.Subsequently, officers from the Bidhannagar North police station arrested Sarmistha Debnath, her friend Nirmal Balmiki and the driver, Md Javed, all residents of Picnic Garden.
These three arrested were among the 871 people who were rounded up on Wednesday for violating the nationwide lockdown, imposed to minimize chances of novel coronavirus infection. Since Monday evening, the count added up to 1,874. Police also spent a considerable time, marking out zones for buyers to stand in queues outside grocery shops, medicine shops, ATMs and even inside malls and departmental stores in Ultadanga, Phoolbagan, Narkeldanga, Patuli, Jadavpur and Rashbehari. “No need to crowd around the shops in the market. Maintain social distancing! @KolkataPolice has started marking the area in front of the shops so that safe distance is maintained by customers,” commissioner of police Anuj Sharma tweeted. At neighbourhoods in and around Beliaghata and Phoolbagan, the local cops also introduced a token system to reduce crowding near shops.
The Salt Lake’s violation took place around 12.30pm, when sub-inspector Suman Bhattacharya and his team were at a check-naka near PNB. They stopped the app cab that came from the CA-Island direction. The officer asked to see the passengers’ identity cards and the purpose of them travelling during the nationwide lockdown, imposed to minimise novel coronavirus infection.
“The passengers initially refused to respond and then said they were going to buy medicines. When our officers asked them to show the prescription, they couldn’t. Then they claimed they were returning after buying provision. When we asked them what they had bought, they showed us a few packets of noodles. The claims seemed unjustified and we told them they would be prosecuted for violating the lockdown protocol. At that point, the woman alighted out of the car, got into a confrontation and bit an officer. She had an old cut on her forehead, which she scratched and wiped the blood on the officer’s shirt, saying she would frame him that ‘he injured her’. But all of her histrionics were captured on camera,” said a senior officer of Bidhannagar City Police.
Based on the complaint lodged by the policemen, the three were booked them under IPC sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention). The three would be produced in a Salt Lake court on Thursday, police said.
Another act of defying police was reported from Konnagar in Hooghly on Tuesday, when cops went to shut a sweet shop that was kept open near the station. Local councillor Tanmay Deb allegedly stepped in and started an altercation with the cops that a sweet shop was an essential goods facility and that it should be kept open. In the melee, he also allegedly pushed the cops. Deb was arrested under IPC Section 188 and released on bail.