Hyderabad: Contradicting the government orders that allowed movement of delivery executives and essential services personnel during the lockdown, police in the city on Saturday stopped several of these and seized their vehicles as well.
Several food delivery executives from Zomato and Swiggy apart from other e-commerce services were caught at Mehdipatnam, Asifnagar, Nampally, MJ Market, Charminar and other places on Saturday, with their vehicles too being seized.
The action from the police personnel on the road came after City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar on Friday said that from Saturday, the police would act stricter against those venturing out on the road unnecessarily.
There was huge police deployment at police check posts across the city with each vehicle being scrutinized after 10 am. It was as part of this that food delivery executives were stopped and detained at various places.
In some places, electricity employees too alleged that they were being unnecessarily stopped while attending to their duties. They pointed out that as essential services, they were earlier exempted from the lockdown.
Severa food delivery executives said the police had allowed them to deliver orders till Friday, with the approach suddenly changing on Saturday.
“We were allowed to deliver food until now, but today suddenly they are stopping us and seizing our vehicles. If the police had clearly indicated, we would not have come out on roads,” said Venkatesham from Swiggy.
However, City Police have denied this and said there was no such restriction on food delivery services and e-commerce deliveries.
“We are not stopping any genuine food delivery executive. We are just detaining those who are just loitering on the roads without any order and passing time,” said DS Chauhan, Additional Commissioner (Law and Order), Hyderabad.
AIMIM Hyderabad MP Asaddudin Owaisi took to Twitter and asked the government to issue a fresh GO, if it had decided not to allow food delivery services.
“Till such an amendment is made, food delivery personnel should not be stopped,” Owaisi tweeted.
“When the GO clearly states that food delivery is permitted, why are delivery personnel being detained?” he asked.
Source: Telangana Today