DCP Among 75 Quarantined In Delhi, 8 Positive How Cops Are Fighting Covid Surge In Ranks

Sanitisation cell set up, cops to go for rotational isolation as efforts intensify to arrest virus spread in 90,000-strong force

- Chayyanika Nigam

South-West DCP Devender Arya has been in self-quarantine after a junior cop he met recently tested positive for the coronavirus.

Arya has been living in a small room in his backyard to avoid being in contact with his two children and wife Vijayanta Arya, posted as DCP in North-West Delhi.

Constable Ram Nivas has not been to his house in South Delhi’s Palam for a while. He reaches out to his wife and two children through video calls and WhatsApp messages, once a day.

Posted at Rajender Nagar police station, Nivas has confined himself to the barracks. “I have a seven-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. I meet more than 150 unknown people every day and I can be a potential carrier,” he said.

I don't want my kids or wife to get infected because of me, so I have decided to not to go home and stay here in the barracks, he added.

The nearly 90,000-strong police force in Delhi is fighting perhaps its toughest battle.

WHY VULNERABLE

Cops remain vulnerably exposed to rising Covid-19 infections and here’s why. They are guarding containment zones, enforcing the lockdown and some 20,000 home quarantines, besides handling thousands of migrants hitting roads in their attempts to go home. Cops are also carrying out high-risk evacuations in coronavirus clusters like Nizamuddin Markaz.

About 5,000 cops are deployed in and around Delhi’s 71 containment zones at any given point in time. Duties change rotationally.

So far, eight cops have tested positive and 75 others, including DCP Arya, are in quarantine.

VIRUS FEARS