Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Tuesday clarified that there is no proposal for the deployment of Army in Mumbai and Pune amid rising coronavirus cases. He strongly denied the messages which went viral on social media on Army deployment and appealed the people not to believe in it.
He told FPJ, "There is no proposal under government’s consideration with regard to the deployment of Army in Mumbai and Pune which are coronavirus hotspots. The state police is quite capable of handling the situation. I have also received reports on social media about Army deployment. Some political party is feeding such kind of messages.’’ He informed that he has already referred these messages to the Maharashtra Cyber Crime asking them to initiate stern action.
Deshmukh slammed BJP for playing politics during the coronavirus crisis. ‘’This is the time to tackle the coronavirus pandemic with unity. However, former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and BJP in particular are playing politics for brownie points which is quite unfortunate,’’ he noted.
According to Deshmukh, of the 20 companies of Central Armed Reserve Force, so far 10 have arrived and deployed in various parts of the state. This was done to give some rest to the police who are working quite hard in the present COVID-19 crisis.
Deshmukh said 1,682 police personnel were tested positive for COVID-19. Of these, 541 have recovered and 18 have tragically succumbed to the virus.
He informed that as many as 1,13,893 offences have been registered under Section 188 of IPC since the lockdown leading to 22,794 arrests & seizure of 69,567 vehicles. ₹5,28,19,747 have been collected in fines from offenders. He said 248 instances of assaults on policemen have seen 830 arrests.
