The Delhi Police have registered a case against staff of buses that ferried people trying to reach Anand Vihar bus terminal to leave for their homes soon after the 21-day country-wide lockdown was announced.
Tens of thousands of people, mostly daily wage workers, had gathered there over the weekend in the hope of getting transport to their homes in town and villages in Uttar Pradesh.
The first information report (FIR) was registered at Shakarpur police station on Sunday after two policemen deployed at a checkpost near ITO complained that they found buses, meant for serving essential service providers, were used to ferry the people to Anand Vihar despite the lockdown.
The policeman on whose complaint the FIR was registered said in his statement that his colleague and had come across seven such buses on Sunday and sent them back. They did the same with 37 other buses — both from the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster bus service.
The policeman alleged that the people in the buses had not been issued tickets either, and when he asked the drivers and conductors about it, they said they had "received orders from above".
The FIR was registered under the Disaster Management Act and the IPC sections pertaining to negligence that could spread a disease, disobedience to quarantine rule and disobedience to an order issued by a government servant.
Apart from the drivers and conductors, the FIR also named the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIIMTS) operations head, CK Goyal.
Speaking to HT, Goyal said that he was not a decision maker, an initiator or a violator and that only government orders were followed. "All those buses were on scheduled duty and the drivers had strict instructions to serve only essential service providers," said Goyal, adding that he had acted on the "written directions of the government".
He said that two officers were suspended in the case in which the FIR has been registered.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Sunday had suspended two top bureaucrats of the Delhi government and issued show cause notices to two others for 'dereliction of duty' regarding containment of Covid-19.
The disciplinary proceedings were issued against additional chief secretary (transport department) Renu Sharma (suspended with immediate effect), additional chief secretary (home and land buildings departments) Satya Gopal (show-cause notice), principal secretary (finance and divisional commissioner Rajiv Verma (suspended with immediate effect) and SDM Seelampur, Ajay Arora (show-cause notice).
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