Karnataka: Two-day curfew sees panic buying in Mangaluru on Monday

MANGALURU: It was chaos all around during the shopping window for essentials from 6am to 10am on the first day leading to the lockdown 2.0 that started on Monday here.
The day saw milling crowds at shops, with absolutely no semblance of social distancing, trying to hoard as much as essentials. This was probably due to the two day curfew imposed by DK administration on Saturday and Sunday.
The day also saw police coming down hard on vehicle users on roads without plausible reason impounding many two and four wheelers. On Sunday Police Commissioner had clarified that vehicles will be permitted during purchase of essential commodities between 6 to 9 am, after former MLC Ivan D’Souza approached District Administration regarding problems faced by people in DK, especially rural areas and also in the city where unlike metros, essentials were not available in every nook and corner of the city.
This resulted in traffic like Monday morning when people rushed to the city for work and police cracked down on vehicles that were in the city unnecessarily and without valid reasons in the Central Business District (CBD). While 233 vehicles were seized on Sunday, the seizures are likely to be thrice that number on Monday. Many showed former MLC’s whatsapp messages saying vehicles were allowed, but police seized vehicles which were far from the CBD. Many shops that opened in CBD at 6 am were shut down by 7.30am as crowds swelled, with no social distancing, for purchases for the festivities on Wednesday. The rush in standalone shops, fish sellers was chaotic with less space for social distancing and not so much at supermarkets as limited people were allowed inside.
Udupi district wore a deserted look after people purchased essentials at the nearest available outlet.