Bollywood actors Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani have landed themselves in trouble as Mumbai Police registered an FIR against the two for allegedly violating COVID-19 StandardOperating Procedures (SOPs).
As per reports, Shroff and Patani were roaming near the Bandra bandstand in the evening after the 2 pm deadline breaking the lockdown rules.
“The case was registered under section 188 (Disobeying the order of public servant) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). No arrest was made because it is a bailable section,” the police told ANI.
An FIR has been registered against actors Tiger Shroff, Disha Patani & others for violating COVID-19 restrictions: Mumbai Police
The actors were found roaming at Bandstand Promenade & couldn’t give a valid reasons to police for being out of their homes after 2 pm
Amidst the second wave of the pandemic, Maharashtra is one of the worst-hit states in India with a total tally of 5.78 million cases. All essential shops are allowed to operate between 7 am to 2 pm in the area. The state is under lockdown till June 15.
The country has reported 28,441,986 Covid’19 cases and 338,013 deaths so far.
Addressing a ceremony in Haripur in connection with the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan will be hosting World Environment Day on June 5.
“This is a great honour and acknowledgment of the fact that Pakistan is among a handful of countries trying to reduce the impact of climate change and global warming,” said PM Khan.
PM Khan said that his government had taken steps to protect the environment, adding that it was a worrying sign that Pakistan was included in the list of 10 countries that are worse affected from climate change.
Earlier this month, Pakistan was chosen to host the World Environment Day 2021 in partnership with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on June 5.
This will be the first time in history that the country will be officially hosting the day.
The day will be celebrated across the world through various events and activities under Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs).
The theme for the day this year will be ecosystem restoration, with a special focus on creating a good relationship with nature.
The Punjab government has decided to vaccinate students of medical colleges and universities, to ensure the safety of all and protection from the virus.
The decision was taken during a meeting chaired by Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid. The government discussed a possible move to vaccinate people employed in 30 other sectors where the dangers of contracting the virus are high.
“Strict implementation of SOPs led to reduction in coronavirus tests. As of today, 901 cases emerged across the province. For the first time, less than a thousand cases have been reported across the province,” Dr Yasmin Rashid had said.
There is a total of 905,852 confirmed cases of Covid- 19 in the country, with a positivity rate of 4.8 per cent.
Real estate tycoon Malik Riaz, his wife, and another member of his team allegedly refused to undergo Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) for coronavirus when landing at Lahore airport, violating the instruction of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).
In a letter written to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) headquarters in Karachi, Lahore airport chief operating officer and manager Akhtar Mirza said the Bahria Town CEO refused to give samples for the Covid-19 test. The team of airport health staff went to his residence to follow up with a test but Riaz refused to take the test.
Letter written to the CAA, regarding Malik Riaz refusing to take the Covid test
Riaz, along with four other people, landed at Lahore Airport from Dubai. After the passengers passed through the immigration process, the CAA duty staff requested Riaz and his fellows to undergo the RAT, which is a rapid diagnostic test that directly detects the presence or absence of the antigen and gives results within few minutes.
“But they did not respond and rapidly moved towards international arrivals exit gate,” Mirza stated in the letter.
Riaz, Bina Riaz and Shahid Mahmood Qureshi, “left the airport without [the test] which is an open violation of NCOC instructions and SOPs”, the letter added.
The CAA management then contacted the government health team and Riaz’s personal staff officer to obtain the RAT samples from the property tycoon’s residence. A two-member team of airport health staff subsequently left for Riaz’s house shortly “but unfortunately once again [he] flatly refused to give samples for the requisite test.”
The letter was submitted to the airport services director at CAA Karachi headquarters for his “information and further necessary action”.
After detection of the coronavirus in some passengers arriving in Pakistan and despite them having negative PCR test results, the CAA tightened the rules regarding testing.
The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has announced a complete ban on tourism, for both locals and outsiders. The ban shall be observed from May 8-16, the week leading up to and including Eid holidays.
All tourist resorts, formal and informal picnic spots, public parks, shopping malls; all hotels and restaurants in/around tourist/ picnic spots to remain closed.
All travel nodes leading to tourist/picnic spots both in Northern areas and in South to remain closed. Locals, especially people belonging to Gilgit Baltistan and AJK will be allowed to travel back home.
The NCOC will form monitoring teams at federal, provincial, and district levels to ensure the implementation of coronavirus SOPs.
All business and shops to remain closed during this time period, with exceptions like food outlets, grocery stores, paramedics, petrol pumps and bakeries etc.
On Monday, Pakistan witnessed a total death toll of 161 individuals, due to Covid-19. The country has recorded a total of 837,523 confirmed Covid cases, with current positivity rate of 8.9%.
Senior analyst Hafeezullah Niazi has trained guns at the government, especially Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan over the decision to deploy army for ensuring COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) are followed.
“Then what good are you? What good is the police force?,” he asked addressing the premier in response to a question by the host of the talk show he was appearing on.
The host had asked Niazi if the decision to deploy the army exposed the government’s failure in dealing with anything from natural calamities to law and order situations and enforcement of COVID-19 SOPs in this case.
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It is pertinent to note that the government announced its decision to summon the army as the third wave of the pandemic continues to take toll on Pakistan.
According to reports, the Interior Ministry has issued a notification allowing the provinces and federal territories to seek the help of the army to enforce SOPs for curbing the spread of the coronavirus.
In a video message on Sunday, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said according to the notification, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir and Islamabad will avail the services of the Pakistan Army for implementation of Covid-19 SOPs “as per their need”. He said Sindh had not opted to be part of the measure for now.
اسلام آباد۔ 25 اپریل
این سی سی کے COVID-19 وبا کے خلاف سول حکومت کی مدد کے لئے افواج پاکستان اور سول آرمڈ فورسز کی تعیناتی کے حوالے سے اہم اعلان۔ pic.twitter.com/Hw2SMsknVo
On Sunday, 5,611 people tested positive for COVID-19. The third wave of coronavirus seems to be spreading quite fast. On Saturday, 157 people died due to coronavirus in Pakistan. This was the highest number ever recorded since the pandemic broke out in the country. Last year the highest number of deaths was 153 in June. On the other hand, people are not following basic SOPs like wearing masks or sanitising hands or maintaining social distancing. The interior ministry has notified army deployment for the implementation of COVID-19 SOPs. Hopefully, people will now follow SOPs.
In the wake of the third coronavirus wave, the government has started walk-in vaccination for those between the age of 60 to 64. But the problem is that the vaccination process in Pakistan is quite slow. According to a report in Dawn, if Pakistan continues its vaccination drive at this rate, “it will take more than three years to cover 20 per cent of the country’s population”. Even the private vaccines are not much in numbers. Unless and until we accelerate our vaccination drive, it will be very difficult to deal with this pandemic. We have seen how horrible the situation is in neighbouring India. Prime Minister Imran Khan and several cabinet ministers as well as many Pakistanis expressed their solidarity with India. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi tweeted: “As a gesture of solidarity with the people of India in the wake of the current wave of COVID-19, Pakistan has officially offered relief and support to India, including ventilators, Bi PAP, digital X-ray machines, PPEs and other related items.” Qureshi added that Pakistan believes in a policy of humanity first. We should not take the situation in India lightly. No hospital beds and acute oxygen shortage in India is scary. Unfortunately, the hospital capacity in Pakistan as well as oxygen supply is also reaching its capacity. Some hospitals in cities like Islamabad are full. ICU beds were more than 90 per cent full a few days ago in Lahore. Oxygen supply ended in two hospitals in Quetta. This is all frightening but real. We need to be more careful and follow SOPs strictly while the government needs to focus more on the vaccination process.
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday announced that there will not not be a complete lockdown but in order to control the situation, people must follow SOPs. PM appealed to the nation that if they follow SOPs and wear masks regularly, Pakistan will not have to take any strict measures. PM said that despite suggestions of lockdowns in cities, he has not taken this decision as it affects the poor the most. “Be careful yourself. Otherwise we will have no other option.”
PM said that the Pakistan Army will assist the police in imposing SOPs.
Key decisions taken by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC):
Schools in districts with positivity rates above 5% closed until Eid
Markets to close at 6pm. Only shops selling essential goods to operate after 6pm
Outdoor and indoor dining banned during Ramzan
Indoor gyms to be closed
Offices to close at 2pm daily with 50% capacity. Rest of the staff to work from home
وزیراعظم عمران خان کی کورونا وباء کی موجودہ صورتِ حال سے متعلق اہم گفتگو https://t.co/WNRXwSEa9E
— Government of Pakistan (@GovtofPakistan) April 23, 2021
Former captain of the Pakistan Cricket team Wasim Akram on Saturday called on authorities to give “two slaps” to people violating the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) as only then they would understand the problem.
Sharing a video message on coronavirus, Akram, in his quintessential Urdu-Punjabi style, hoped that people from Pakistan and across the world will be in good health in these “testing times”.
The cricketer turned commentator said that he had “read and seen” that coronavirus cases were rising in Punjab, especially in his city Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
“Please follow the SOPs. Why are you so stubborn?” Akram asked his followers.
The former fast bowler said that there was also a “Plan B” in place for those not following the SOPs.
Akram, then in Punjabi, explained that “Plan B” is to give all violators two slaps each as they would never understand in the normal manner. He sniped that the Pakistanis were just “legends”.
The former fast bowler’s comments come as the country for a second day reported more than 4,000 cases. Most of these cases were from Punjab.
According to data from the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 4,468 people tested positive for COVID-19 on March 26 while 67 people succumbed to the virus.
Pakistan is currently battling its third wave of the coronavirus due to a lethal UK strain that has entered the country.
Amid a drastic rise in COVID-19 cases in Punjab, the provincial government has decided to reimpose numerous restrictions in different districts of the province.
Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar tweeted an update on the new restrictions, saying that COVID-19 cases, especially the UK variant, were spreading across the province rapidly.
“According to the advice of health experts, starting from Saturday night, we have decided to implement strict coronavirus SOPs in districts with over 5% positivity rate for the next 15 days,” he wrote.
ان اضلاع میں تمام تعلیمی ادارے، پارکس، ان ڈور شادی ہال، مزارات، میلے، کھیلوں کی سرگرمیوں وغیرہ پر 15 دن کےلیے پابندی ہو گی۔ مارکیٹس شام 6 بجے بند کر دی جائیں گی۔
سمارٹ لاک ڈاؤن SOPs پر بھی سختی سےعملدرآمد کےاحکامات دئیےہیں۔
Later, the Punjab health department issued a notification listing restrictions across the province.
“The positivity rate in some cities is constantly rising and third wave is looming, which poses a serious and imminent threat to public health,” read the notification, adding that the restrictions are being put in place under the Punjab Infectious Diseases (Prevention and Control) Act 2020.
پنجاب بھر میں کورونا کے بڑھتے ہوئے کیسز کے پیش نظر 29 مارچ تک کورونا ایس او پیز پر سختی سے عمل کروانے کا فیصلہ: pic.twitter.com/9oy6HWhsyp
Meanwhile, here’s what you can and cannot do during the lockdown:
All commercial activities, establishments and markets will close by 6 pm on weekdays and completely closed on weekends.
This excludes medical services, general stores, bakeries, milk and meat shops, tire puncture shops, fruit and vegetable shops, tandoors, petrol pumps, oil depots, LPG outlets and filing plants, agriculture machinery workshops and spare parts shops, printing press, call centres (with 50% staff and no public dealing).
Complete ban on indoor and outdoor dining in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Gujrat and only takeaway/ home delivery will be allowed in these cities. Only takeaway and home delivery from restaurants will be allowed.
Wedding halls are to remain closed in Lahore, Rawalpindi. Sargodha, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Gujrat from March 15. Only outdoor functions will be allowed with a maximum of 300 guests.
Parks will close at 6 pm.
Offices are to follow a 50% work from home policy.
Cinemas and shrines will stay closed.
Indoor gatherings have been banned. Outdoor gatherings are allowed with a maximum of 50 people in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Gujrat and 300 persons (outdoor) in the rest of the province for a maximum of two hours.
Sports and all cultural activities will still be banned.
Industrial activities and establishments are exempt from these restrictions
