Neighbourhood shopkeepers among 7,000 arrested in a week for flouting norms in Kolkata

KOLKATA: The city police, which carried out close to 7,000 arrests and prosecutions in the past seven days of people breaking enhanced restriction rules, claimed that the shopkeepers and traders (especially those within neighbourhoods), have become a major cause of worry for them.
“The number of motorists being handed challans for not sticking to the time ban saw a sharp rise, even surpassing the seizures of vehicles for the first time on certain days,” said an officer.The average daily prosecution of citizens went up this weekend as compared to last week even as seizures of vehicles dropped.

Police said that a section of grocery and stationery shops of local markets remain open beyond the 10am deadline citing “logistic difficulties” of closing and reopening again in the afternoonfor another four hours. “The biggest worry, though, are the roadside tea stalls and eateries that are trying to reopen leading to crowding. This defeats the purpose of such enhanced restrictions. Paan and cigarette shops fall in the same category. While officers are happy with major markets sticking to rules, they say that it is the ones adjacent to markets or the temporary food item sellers, who seem to be unaware of the laws,” said an officer.
Till Sunday noon, the cops prosecuted 1,144 persons per day with total arrests standing at 8,013. Last week, the average arrests per day stood at 818 with a total of 5,692 arrests. In comparison, till Sunday afternoon, police seized 1,503 vehicles per day, down from the daily average of 1784 last week. The total seizures of vehicles this week stood at 10,522 compared to 12, 493 last week. “The grocery shops can open between 7 am and 10 am and again for four hours at noon. The other shops might operate in the afternoon shift. But all shops — except medicine and eateries that are catering to home delivery — must shut shop by 4 pm. Even for eateries, they can only do home delivery. Any violation of the same can hand them a challan and even arrests,” explained a divisional officer.
Police said they have also nabbed motorists claiming to drive down to shops and eateries. “Those arguing are being shown government notifications,” said an officer at a naka on Howrah Bridge.
“We are ready to close our shops, but at times customers do not care about curbs. If someone is at our shop, it’s difficult to shut it down,” said a shop owner in Gariahat.