Cops place social distance onus on shopkeepers, will lodge case against defaulters

Bhubaneswar: The commissionerate police here have decided to register criminal cases against shopkeepers selling essential commodities if they are found to be flouting social distancing norms during the lockdown. Police said they would also ask the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to cancel the trade licences of the defaulters.
“We will act tough against vendors from Monday if they fail to adhere to the social distancing norms.It is the responsibility of the shopkeepers to ensure compliance with social distancing outside their shops. We will immediately seal the shops that violate the rules and ask the BMC to reject their trade licences,” commissioner of police Sudhanshu Sarangi said.
ACP Anup Kumar Sahoo said the violators would be booked under sections 188 (disobedience of government order), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease and dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease) and 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) of the IPC.
BMC commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary said people should take advantage of the home delivery and mobile vending facilities offered by different grocery and vegetable stores in the city. “We have been noticing that some people are not maintaining social distance during the lockdown. To prevent the spread of Covid-19, shopkeepers have to lead from the front and insist that their customers obey the norms. Every shop should have circles with minimum 2-metre gap for customers to stand in queue,” Chaudhary said.