With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing among the state and city police, Central Armed forces are being deployed in the state. Five companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) reached Mumbai on Monday and were deployed in high risk zones across the city.
These central reinforcement will assist the city police and the civic body in crowd control and physical distancing measures during the lockdown 4.0 which started from Monday across the state.
"We have been facing issues with implementation of physical distancing and lockdown rules across the city especially in areas where there are dense slum pockets. It was becoming too risky for even BMC employees who distribute food packets and health workers to venture into these high risk zones. The deployment will enable the Mumbai Police and police in other parts of the state to get the much-needed break rigorous duty they were carrying out for two months continuously. It will also help BMC approach towards containment of the outbreak," said a senior BMC official.
While 5 companies -- each with 120 highly-trained personnel -- will be deployed in the city from Tuesday, five others will be deployed across the state.
The Central reinforcement, the official said that of the five companies of CAPF, 3 are from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) while the rest 2 are from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
According to BMC officials total of 5 companies of CISF and CRPF to be deployed in: Zone 1 (South Mumbai)- Colaba to Marine Drive, Zone 3 - Tardeo, Nagpada, Worli to NM Joshi Marg, Zone 5 - Dharavi to Dadar, Zone 6 - Chembur to Mankhurd, and Zone 9 - Bandra to Andheri West.
"Yes, Dharavi is one of the locations where the central reinforcement was supposed to be deployed. However as on Tuesday, I have not received any communication from the local police," said Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of G (North) ward.
