Himachal Pradesh: Police greets cop with musical band to fight out social stigma with Covid-19

DHARAMSHALA: Huge arrangements were made by state police department in remote village Panchrukhi of Himachal Pradesh to greet their cop who recovered from Covid-19. Ambulance arrived with the cop at his native village amid tunes of official musical band of police playing different tunes. Top police officials reached the spot including District Magistrate to greet the cop.
Superintendent of Police at Kangra, Vimukt Ranjan, told TOI on Saturday that the welcome ceremony was arranged as a social taboo is attached with Covid-19 and many families are suffering from it in this region.
“We had arranged a huge ceremony to boost the morale of police force and to spread a message among the masses that Covid-19 is also like a normal disease. We have to follow the safety measures to avoid the spread of this not to boycott the families who are becoming infected of this” he said.
The cop was found positive earlier this month after which the police station was sealed and other staff was quarantined. But he was tested negative a day before and was discharged from the Covid care center on late Friday noon. As per guidelines, he will remain in quarantine now.
Kangra district has witnessed maximum cases of corona in past few days since interstate movement has started. The tally in state so far has crossed the mark of 170. Authorities are putting people coming from outside state in quarantine in a bid to stop the community spread.
Deputy Commissioner at Kangra, Rakesh Kumar Prajapati, said that they have also increased the capacity of the testing in their labs to detect all the cases in time to stop the spread in masses.
He also talked about social boycotts being faced by the people in the region.
Giving the figures he said that only 3 persons in state have died of Covid-19 while only in Kangra district 958 died in just two weeks from 24 April to May 8 this month.
“Social stigma is attached to this virus. I had to send my senior officials to one of the patient’s home who recovered from this virus. As people in his village have boycotted his family” said Prajapati.