New Delhi: From allegedly substandard made-at-home sanitisers to “misbranded” masks, Pune police have been on a crackdown spree against spurious Covid-related medical products.
According to data accessed by ThePrint, between June and the early weeks of July, Pune Police booked 83 cases under the Essential Commodities Act, a legal framework meant to prevent malpractices in connection with commodities that are deemed necessities.
In 2019, the number of cases filed under the Act stood at 3 for the entire year.
Since the beginning of the lockdown in March, the same month that masks and sanitisers were introduced into the Act, police have been on the hunt for those engaged in selling poor quality variants of the products, price gouging of essentials, and hoodwinking consumers.
In one case reported from Duttwadi, three people were arrested for allegedly making substandard sanitisers at home, and police seized raw material worth Rs 1.02 lakh. In another case, two persons were arrested and material worth Rs 10 lakh was seized for the same offence.
In Samarth, police seized 17,805 surgical masks worth Rs 4.5 lakh that were being sold as the more sophisticated N95 masks at an exorbitant price. Two men were arrested in connection with the case.
“As the demand for sanitisers and masks grew, many started indulging in this business of making sanitisers without any permission or procedural approval,” a senior police officer said. “They started using harmful chemicals and making sanitisers at home. These sanitisers are not only ineffective but also harmful,” the officer added.
According to the officer, “in the current scenario”, they are “focusing more on these cases as it is the need of the hour”.
“It is not that these cases did not matter earlier, but now the focus has shifted to these cases as they are right now a priority,” he added.
The officer said police now conduct regular drives and raids to ensure none of the essentials is sold at an exorbitant price.
“We have registered many cases related to essential products being sold at exorbitant prices and have arrested people. This is something that concerns the general public at this point and hence needs to be dealt with, with a heavy hand,” he said.
The focus on price gouging has also led police to crack down on the practice with respect to non-essential items such as cigarettes and alcohol. Between March and 10 July, Pune Crime Branch seized cigarettes worth Rs 1.74 crore and alcohol worth Rs 29.7 lakh that were being sold at exorbitant rates.
Also Read: This area in Nashik has region’s highest Covid death rate, yet it’s business as usual here
Morning walkers under scrutiny
This shift in Pune Police’s focus has also brought the general public under strict scrutiny. With police keen on ensuring strict implementation of the lockdowns, the last of which ended Thursday, 24,436 cases were registered under Section 188 of the IPC for violation of prohibitory orders from March to 10 July
Police have also impounded 45,207 vehicles plying without lockdown passes. More than 1,081 cases have been registered against “morning walkers”, and 2,398 against people not wearing masks.
“These are important things to watch out for in the current scenario and our people are enforcing the guidelines very strictly. This is for the benefit of the general public and they understand that. Each life matters,” Pune Police Commissioner K. Venkatesham said.
“A major challenge is to make people understand and convince them to stay indoors. Anything that needs to be enforced, can only be done if people cooperate,” he added. “So, now the police force has also started sensitising the general public, which is working. The police force has gone beyond the call of duty in the service of Punekars.”
Also Read: How home-makers, masons & painters are driving Pune’s auto hub out of lockdown losses
Regular crime being ignored?
As the nationwide lockdown was lifted in June, the crime rate surged after a drastic dip during peak restrictions in April and March.
In April, the number of cases related to body crime, which includes murder, robbery and snatching, stood at 36. The number rose to 149 in May, 107 in June, and 31 in the first 10 days of July.
“Crime under all heads had reduced after implementation of the lockdown on 24 March, and April witnessed only 15 per cent of the crime as compared to January,” said a second officer. “After the lockdown, however, a rise in body offences has been seen,” a second senior officer said.
While the national lockdown was almost completely relaxed in June, states and cities have been imposing their own restrictions since amid rising infections.
“In June, body offences reduced while those associated with property, crime against women, and other offences saw a marginal rise,” he added.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, police officers admitted, the alleged fleecing of consumers and lockdown violations had gained higher priority than regular crime, and took up the bulk of their “limited resources”.
“The focus for the last so many months has been the pandemic and most police resources are caught up with enforcement duties. With limited resources, it is difficult to balance cracking down on crime and at the same time be on enforcement duties,” he said.
“Checking on criminals went down initially, because some policemen were reluctant to stir out amid a pandemic and many were put on enforcement duties. But once we made all the protective gear available to policemen like PPE kits, those reluctant returned to the streets and we freed some of the personnel from enforcement duties too, which brought the situation under control,” he added.
He said it would be wrong to say police are not concentrating on curbing regular crime.
“It will be wrong to say that we are ignoring regular crime. When crime started rising, efforts were made to increase policing and take proactive preventive action against criminals,” he added. “Also, surveillance on repeat offenders and history-sheeters was increased, which has led to reduction in body offences in June as compared to May.”
Also Read: ‘Allow us to take our lives’ — Pune traders protest against lockdown, say business is hurting
Technology for criminals being used for contact tracing
Among other roles in connection with the pandemic, police have been engaged in contact tracing. To this end, they have been deploying technical analysis of call detail records, which are normally used to trace criminals.
“This is being called a Facility for Accelerated Contact Tracing (FACT),” the second senior police officer said.
“This uses technical analysis to trace contacts of positive patients. This is done through CDR analysis, tower dump analysis, chat bots and pharmacist reports,” he added.
Pune police have also enrolled citizen volunteers as “special police officers (SPOs)” to assist in law and order duties.
“The citizens who were willing to help with the bandobast (preparations) were enrolled as special officers and they assisted the police in nakabandi (lockdown watch), contact tracing, rendering assistance to social policing cells,” Venkatesham said.
“More than 6,021 SPOs have now been nominated by zonal DCPs (deputy commissioners of police) for community liaison and assistance,” he added.
Also Read: Train to Bangladesh comes to the rescue of onion hub Nashik after Covid disrupts business
send it in Hindi langweg