Cops bond with offenders with sacred band

Vadodara: Commuters in Sabarkantha district, who were out of their homes on Monday without face masks, were left confused. Instead of penalizing them, policemen posted at important places and junctions across the district were gifting them masks to put them on.
The initiative was planned specially for Rakshabandhan day and christened ‘Khakhi ej raakhi.’ The casual attitude among people about wearing masks is evident from the fact that police distributed 5,000 masks just in one day.
Officials said that on Rakshabandhan, as a woman ties ‘rakhi’ to take promise of protecting her, cops gave masks to people and explained them its importance to protect themselves during Covid-19 pandemic. The day was deliberately selected as people come out of their houses in big numbers to visit relatives and celebrate the festival.
“The monthly fine that we collect from people for not wearing masks is around Rs 30 lakh. We wanted people to understand the importance of masks and that they should wear it all the time when they are out of their houses, so we planned it with the tagline: ‘Khakhi ej rakhi,” said Sabarkan district superintendent of police Chaitanya Mandlik.
In Surat, the nursing staff at the SMIMER Hospital tied rakhis to Covid-19 patients on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. “Neither can the patients go home to celebrate the festival with sisters, nor can their relatives come to hospital. We celebrated the festival so that they don’t feel left out,’‘ said officials.