No major impact of lockdown in urban areas of Haryana

Over 4,500 passes were approved under the auto-approved category whereas around 2,000 passes have been approved by the DC. NISHA YADAV, Kurukshetra city magistrate

KARNAL: Even as the Haryana government has made movement pass mandatory for commuters during lockdown, there was no major impact on movement of people on highways, especially in the cities.

The district-level officials dealing with enforcement of lockdown said the lockdown is not as strict as the one people faced last year.

They said the government has allowed auto approval for movement passes and thousands of people from across district have auto-approved passes as people applying for it do not require any approval from the authorities.

Kurukshetra city magistrate Nisha Yadav said, “We are getting good response from people for movement pass as over 4,500 passes were approved under the auto-approved category whereas around 2,000 passes have been approved by the deputy commissioner.”

In Panipat, 1,09,990 people have applied for the movement passes and 9,120 have been approved, including 8,101 who got auto-approved passes.

523 challaned in Panipat

Panipat superintendent of police (SP) Shashank Kumar Sawan said 523 people have been challaned in Panipat in the last two days for coming out on roads without any valid reason and 340 people were challaned for not wearing masks.

Also, Karnal police have challaned 300 people for violating the lockdown. Over 14,000 people have auto-approved passes in Karnal so far, whereas the deputy commissioner has approved only 21, and 3,627 are still in the process.

BJP leaders protest West Bengal violence

The BJP leaders staged a dharna at all district headquarters to protest post-election violence in West Bengal.

The protests were led by BJP MPS and MLAS at the mini-secretariat as only five people were sitting on dharna.

They slammed TMC leaders for alleged attacking BJP workers within hours after TMC registered a thumping win in the assembly polls.

BJP MP from Karnal, Sanjay Bhaita, who led the protests in Karnal and Panipat, said, “TMC workers are attacking BJP workers in West Bengal and this is highly condemnable.”