JAIPUR: The first day of the fortnight-long curfew that began on Monday turned out to be bemusing one for the cops manning the barricades placed on city roads to check if people were violating the guidelines.
They did not expect that so many vehicles, including cars, buses, auto rickshaws and wheels of every other variety would turn up on the roads. As they stuck to the task of verifying the purpose of visit of the people, the traffic snarls kept growing.
What ensued is an irony of sorts of the curfew, traffic jams and snarls having hundreds of vehicles witnessed on Tonk Road, Badi Chaupar and other places.
As it turned out, there were not many violators and the cops had to give passage to all vehicles barring a couple of isolated cases, who were unfortunate to not have any identity cards.
A cop said privately that the guidelines were very citizen-centric and they had to allow people who were even going to buy vegetables from the Lal Kothi Sabji Mandi.
Commenting on the traffic in the city, Rahul Prakash, additional commissioner of police, Jaipur police commissionerate, said, “Citizens are coming up with reasons which are permitted in the rules. Since most of the things are permitted or open in the city, including transport, we are maintaining a balance by moderating it.”
But as the snarls got longer, cops realized that it was not making a good optic of the curfew and there were not many who were actually breaking any rules.
After an hour or so, the barricades were removed at some places, including Tonk Road, to ease the traffic flow and along with that the verification process was also abandoned.
But the curfew seems to have got what the cops failed earlier, of not having crowds, as the markets, malls, and most shops remained shut.