With Maharashtra’s Omicron caseload rising steadily, Section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed in Mumbai on the 11th and 12th of December. Rallies, morchas, processions etc of either people or vehicles are now forbidden in the coastal city. Violators will be punished under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code and other legal provisions.
According to officials, the order has also been issued over a threat to the law and order situation against the backdrop of violence that took place in Amravati, Malegaon and Nanded last month. Protest rallies that were taken out to condemn reports of violence against Muslims in Tripura took a chaotic turn in early November, with agitators allegedly pelting the police with stones. According to reports, several shops and vehicles were also damaged, and the police had to resort to lathi charging and the use of tear gas.
The development comes after the state reported seven new cases of the Omicron variant on Friday including a three-and-half-year-old girl. A little more than a week after the new variant was first detected in the country, Maharashtra is now leading the charts with 17 cases. As per the Mumbai civic body, the capital city has reported five such cases. India presently has 32 Omicron cases from five states.
Three of the COVID-19 cases reported from the state on Friday were from Mumbai, while four were from the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. While four of these individuals are asymptomatic, three reportedly display mild symptoms. Excluding the toddler (who is ineligible), four of the new cases stem from fully vaccinated individuals. One has taken a single dose, while another is unvaccinated.
Meanwhile, data from the BMC’s fifth genomic sequencing exercise indicates that the COVID-19 variants currently circulating in Mumbai include ‘descendants’ of the Delta variant. According to reports, Delta derivatives now make up a significant number of COVID-19 cases in the city.
As of Saturday morning, India has 93,277 active COVID-19 cases and has administered more than 1.31 billion doses of vaccine. Maharashtra has a little more than 10 thousand active cases.
