Nihang men chop off cop’s hand after defying restrictions

BALBERA(PATIALA): A policeman’s hand was chopped off with a sword and six of his colleagues were injured in an attack by a group of Nihangs at a vegetable market in Punjab’s Patiala, the state police said on Sunday.

Assistant sub-inspector Harjit Singh’s hand was later reattached after a plastic surgery lasting seven-and-a-half hours at Chandigarh’s PGI hospital and 11 people were arrested from a village dera over their role in the incident. Police said ~39 lakh, two petrol bombs, spears, swords and other weapons, as well as five bags of poppy husk were recovered from them.

The Nihangs are a Sikh sect whose members live on the fringes of society and dress up as medieval warriors owing allegiance to Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru, specialising in the traditional martial art of gatka (similar to the modern sport of fencing).

Police said the men were asked to show their curfew passes at the vegetable market, which they refused to do and instead forced their way through the barricade. When the policemen chased them and told them to step out of their vehicle, five men came out and launched an attack with swords. As six policemen received injuries and the ASI fell down after his hand was cut off, the men drove away.

Apart from chief minister Amarinder Singh, several political leaders said strict action should be taken.

WASHINGTON: As the United States went from one coronavirus death on February 29 to more than 20,000 as of Sunday, reports say the Trump administration did not heed early warnings, with the US president himself reluctant to acknowledge the seriousness of the crisis.

The New York Times on Saturday reported that Donald Trump and his administration wasted precious time over January, February and up until mid-March when mitigation efforts went into full force. He focused on other things, it said, though “an array of figures inside his government - from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies - identified the coronavirus threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action”. Associated Press reported that the administration failed to stockpile medical supplies or impose travel restrictions in time. The US president seemed consumed by the impeachment trial and the White House was slow to act, riven by infighting and turnover of personnel, it said.

The Washington Post pointed to the dysfunction in the administration as recently as on April 4.

Because of the missed warnings, similar to the failures leading up to the 9/11 terror attacks, the US “will likely go down as the country that was supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched by the coronavirus, sustaining heavier casualties than any other nation”, it said in a report. The US now has the highest fatalities at 21,435 as of Sunday morning, with more than 1,900 reported in the previous 24 hours; and the most confirmed cases with 537,356. It now accounts for a fifth of the global toll of 112,447 and nearly a third of the 1.83 million confirmed cases.

New York state remained the worst hit with 181,144 confirmed cases and 9,385 deaths. The toll in New York City, the epicentre of the American outbreak, went up to 6,367. Federal and state officials have, however, pointed to a drop in hospitalisation and “flattening” of other metrics to express optimism the situation may be improving.