30 June

Mumbai police seized 8,611 vehicles across the city found for violating lockdown norms of traveling beyond 2 km of residential area without a valid official reason.

As per the data, the police verified 30,072 vehicles across 137 check points in the city on Monday following its appeal to the citizens on Sunday to restrict their outdoor travel for essential activities within a 2-km radius of their homes to curb COVID-19.

Of the total vehicles impounded, 6,241 were two-wheelers, 1,601 private cars, 295 taxies and 474 three-wheelers, according to the police data.

This exercise of police checking had led to heavy traffic congestion in parts of the city, where a vehicle locked up in traffic for an hour is not considered unusual in normal circumstances prior to the pandemic.

With mass transport like railways in the city being restricted to essential service providers due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the road network in India's financial capital also had been witnessing abnormally high traffic.

Mumbai has over 3 million registered vehicle and is termed as India's most car-congested city.

The police had warned of strict action against offenders as the travel movement beyond 2 km was relaxed only for attending office and medical emergencies.

India's financial capital, with a population of 18.4 million, is the worst affected city in India with over 28,000 active cases and 4,371 deaths. As on Tuesday morning, India, ranked fourth among all countries for number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, has 210,120 active cases with 16,475 deaths reported so far.

xinhua