Dramatic photos and videos show how police across India are using extreme force against violators of the country’s coronavirus lockdown.
Baton-wielding cops wearing surgical masks can be seen in the images and footage from Wednesday beating those breaking the rules.
On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of the potentially deadly virus — and declared that no one will be allowed to leave their homes.
“To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family … every street, every neighborhood is being put under lockdown,” Modi said in a television address to the nation’s 1.3 billion people.
After the lockdown went into effect, locals were seen on TV news and social media being struck with batons in the streets of the southern state of Kerala.
Alok Barman, a houseworker who works in south Delhi homes, said he was beaten by cops when he went outside his home into the city’s outskirts.
“Some homes that I work in paid me some money and I thought it was best to get some food in the house. But the police attacked us with sticks and beat us,” Barman said. “Now we have nothing to eat.”
Another local, Tarique Anwar, said he went out to buy milk and vegetables at a grocery store in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar neighborhood but was stopped by police who ordered him to go home.
A meat shop owner in the capital’s Zakir Nagar neighborhood said police smashed up his shop and beat him for opening the store.
“They charged inside and started abusing and beating me,” the store owner said.
New Delhi police spokesman Anil Mittal denied that police were beating people even though there was documentation of the incidents.
As of Wednesday, there were more than 600 confirmed coronavirus cases in India.
With Post wires