Covid-19: Gujarat govt extends night curfew to 20 cities after HC suggests imposing lockdown

The court observed that there is a need for a full lockdown

Hours after the Gujarat High Court suggested imposing a lockdown or curfew to control rising Covid-19 cases, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday night announced that the government had extended night curfew to 20 cities in the state.

Currently, only Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot were following night curfew from 9 pm to 6 pm. The chief minister said that the curfew has been extended to a total of 20 cities where it will be in place from 8 pm to 6 pm.

New cities where night curfew will be imposed from Wednesday are - Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Gandhinagar, Junagadh, Anand, Nadiad, Mahesana, Morbi, Patan, Godhra, Dahod, Bhuj, Gandhidham, Bharuch, Surendranagar and Amreli. Rupani said that the decision was taken after various consultations with the officers and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Earlier in the day, while noting that the coronavirus crisis has almost reached where it was last year when the pandemic broke out, the Gujarat High Court on Tuesday had told the state government to take urgent measures to control the spread of the virus. The High Court suggested a weekend lockdown or a curfew for the same. Following this, the state government called for a high-level meeting in Gandhinagar and it is expected to inform the court about its decision soon.

The division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice BN Karia specially requested Advocate General Kamal Trivedi and government pleader Manisha Lavkumar to appear before the bench to apprise it with the government's steps to control the virus. During the hearing, the Chief Justice said, "The issue is that things are going out of control, the Covid-19 situation. Now this time, Ahmedabad is in a pretty bad state with 700 plus cases yesterday. Some people say that this is not the correct figure and maybe, this is slightly on the lower side than the actual figure."

Gujarat had reported 3,160 cases on Monday, its highest in a year, and 15 deaths in the span of 24 hours.

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"You may please convey our message to decision-makers that urgent serious steps need to be taken to check this otherwise it is going to go out of hand. It would be a situation where again a lockdown will have to be...it's (the situation) almost reaching there...May be three-four day of curfew or a lockdown may, you know, check the situation at the movement. Then you can after 3-4 days open it. But, two or three days curfew will help I think," the division bench led by Chief Justice Vikram Nath said.

The bench said that despite a curfew from 9 pm to 6 am "things are not getting under control". Chief Justice Nath said that even high court staff are panic-stricken. "Of course, I am thankful and grateful to them that they are cooperating. They're working under stress and under pressure. Everywhere, government offices are open.. corporate is open... Now we fail to understand how to control the situation, and this time the mortality rate is also very high despite the government's best efforts. January, February (cases) was very low."

In response, Trivedi said the government is taking steps and it is responsible to control the situation but at the same time "people at large will have to understand that now there is a war between corona and people. So people should understand to avoid gathering. The government is thinking about various options." He also mentioned that a complete lockdown would mean further hardship for people from lower strata. He said that the government will respond to the suggestion of the bench on weekend lockdown.