As there is no respite from surging COVID cases, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has announced 84-hour lockdown in 11 districts starting Thursday 7 pm till Monday 7 am. Only essential services will be exempted.
“Eleven districts including Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Budgam, Kulgam, Pulwama, Ganderbal, Jammu, Kathua, Reasi, Udhampur will be under ‘corona curfew’ from Thursday evening (7 pm) till Monday morning (7 am)”, Simrandeep Singh, Secretary of the Disaster Management Department informed.
As per the official, detailed orders under the Disaster Management Act listing out prohibitions and permissible activities will be issued by the deputy commissioners of the concerned districts.
Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Mohammad Aijaz Asad, in a tweet said, “There will be Complete Lockdown in Srinagar District from 7:00 pm Thursday (29/04/2021) to 7:00 am Monday (03/05/2021). Exemptions apply to essential services. Detailed order shall follow.”
Office of Deputy Commissioner Jammu tweeted: “Complete Lockdown in District Jammu from 7:00 pm Thursday (29/04/2021) to 7:00 AM Monday (03/05/2021). Exemptions only for essential services.”
Similarly the deputy commissioners from other nine districts where lockdown will be in force reiterated the announcement.
Srinagar is the worst hit in Jammu and Kashmir due to COVID, on an average 900 cases are reported daily for the past few days. The district has the highest number of active cases as well as fatalities reported so far.
The Deputy Commissioner Srinagar on Tuesday had imposed section 144 to prevent gatherings.
Earlier on Saturday, the J&K administration imposed a 34-hour curfew. On April 8, a night curfew from 10 pm to 6 am was imposed in the urban areas of eight districts, which was extended to the municipal and urban local body limits of all the 20 districts on April 20.
J&K on Wednesday reported 3,023 new cases of coronavirus, taking up the caseload to 1,69,077.
A day before, J&K reported its worst ever spike of 3213 COVID cases in a single day. In just six days, 136 persons have died due to viral respiratory illness.
Moreover, the death toll climbed to 2,227 as the union territory reported 30 additional deaths due to coronavirus infection in a 24 hours span.
The number of active cases has reached 24,313 while 1,42,537 patients have recovered so far.