People of Jammu, particularly the city residents, seem confused over ‘64 hour long weekend lockdown’ which was supposed to begin from Friday afternoon.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Thursday ordered imposition of complete restriction on non-essential movement in the Union Territory from every Friday 2 pm to Monday 6.00 am.
However in Jammu, the markets and business establishments remained open for the entire day after Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry claimed that they (CCIJ) had talked to the administration for relaxation in the restriction till 9 pm in the evening.
Talking to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) Arun Gupta president JCCI said, “I have talked with Deputy Commissioner and SSP Jammu to give relaxation to the traders till Friday evening,”
“The festival and marriage season is going on. Traders can’t afford a three day lockdown. I had made a request to the administration to allow normal functioning of bazaars for Friday and also appealed to the traders to close business establishments for Saturday and Sunday,” Gupta said.
In the meantime, around 2.30 pm, when all the markets were working normally, the official twitter handle of Deputy Commissioner Jammu reconfirmed administration’s order and stated that there were complete restrictions on non-essential items till Monday morning.
“𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃 𝐑𝐞st𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐮, Complete restrictions on non-essential movement from Friday 2:00 PM to Monday 6:00 AM. No restrictions on transport, essential services and home deliveries during this period (sic),” tweets Deputy Commissioner Jammu.
Later speaking to media DC Jammu Anshul Garg said that Jammu District on request of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry shops were allowed to open to avoid panic. He said the consultations were held with traders to shut shops for Saturday and Sunday so that the transmission chain could be broken.
However, strict lockdown were observed after noon in districts of Jammu including Kishtwar, Ramban, Doda, Poonch and Rajouri.
Pertinently, the government imposed an unannounced weekend lockdown across Jammu and Kashmir on last Saturday and Sunday in wake of the surge in Covid-19 cases across the Union Territory.
The formal order in this regard, the Chief Secretary, who is also Chairman of State Executive Committee (SEC) has said that there shall be a complete restriction on non-essential movement in the entire UT of J&K from every Friday 2.00 pm to Monday 6.00 am, henceforth.
It also said that the pregnant women employees will be exempted from physical attendance and they shall be allowed to work from home—(KNO)
