Over 500 cops test Covid positive in 2 days, four succumb
: Over 500 cops tested positive for Covid and four succumbed to the infection across the state in the past two days, said senior police officials here on Thursday.
They said with around 518 fresh cases reported in the aforesaid period, the total active cases in the police force had now swelled to 1493.
A senior police official it was the highest number of cases reported in the police force in two days since April 2020. He said the list included three senior IPS officers posted as police chiefs in Unnao, Kasganj and Sonbhadra respectively. He said the state government had to post temporary police chiefs in these districts on Thursday. He said a state government order stated that Ashish Tewari had been asked to take the charge of SP Unnao, Kunwar Anupam Singh was asked to act as SP Kasganj and Sudha Singh as SP Sonbhadra till the officers posted there did not get well.
A senior police officer said the maximum 1,103 active cases were reported from district police units while 187 active cases were reported from other police office units, 90 from government railway police (GRP), 75 from provincial armed constabulary (PAC), 21 from police training centres, 14 from state police headquarters in Lucknow and three cases from home guards’ wing.
A senior police officer said active cases in the police force were only 461 on April 16 which increased to over two times in just four days with 1008 active cases reported on April 20. He said the figure increased to 1,493 within two days after that.
Sharing details of death toll, the cop said maximum numbers of 75 deaths were reported from district units, seven from PAC, three from other police units, two each from DGP headquarters and home guards’ wings and one each from a police training centre and GRP.
The officer said a total of 14,184 police personnel had tested positive for Sars-CoV-2 infection and 91 of them succumbed during treatment between April 24, 2020, and April 22, 2021.
He said as many as 1,11,251 police personnel in field duties in different districts across the state tested positive between April 24, 2020, and April 20, 2021.