Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has directed the state government to apprise the court regarding all the safeguards, especially with regard to bathing of devotees, which would be taken by it for holding the Magh Mela-2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The court also directed all the district administrations of Uttar Pradesh to inspect regularly all the private and government schools and see that Covid-19 guidelines vis-a-vis sanitization and wearing of masks are followed in schools.
Hearing a PIL relating to Covid-19, a division bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Ajit Kumar observed, “It has been informed that schools and colleges in the state of Uttar Pradesh have been opened ever since December 7, 2020. It is a matter of concern whether the teachers and the students would follow the Covid-19 guidelines. There is always a possibility that young children might violate the guidelines.”
The court reiterated that to curb the spread of Covid-19, cent percent face masking and tracking of infected people must be done effectively.
During the course of hearing, top cops of Lucknow, Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Meerut had filed their respective affidavits before the court stating that the police personnel have been deployed in every stretch of 2 kms of every road in their districts to ensure cent percent face masking. On this the court directed the top cops to file affidavits bringing on record details of police personnel who were deployed for this purpose by the next date of hearing which is fixed as December 17, 2020.
To recall, earlier on December 3, 2020, the court, while taking a serious note of the definite rise in the active cases of Covid-19 in Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Meerut and Kanpur Nagar, had directed the heads of administration and police forces of these districts to file their respective affidavits mentioning therein the steps they were taking to restrain the hike in such cases.
The court passed these directives on December 10.