Kolkata Police Emphasizes On Wearing A Mask In ‘MaskUpKolkata’ Campaign

The Kolkata police have taken up a new step to fight with the increasing number of coronavirus cases across the city. The policemen being the frontline warriors against this pandemic has launched a campaign from its Labazar unit #MaskUpKolkata. The strategy under this campaign will have two-fold dimensions into it – the first line of action would be to reach out to maximum people and in the second movement, the police will identify and intensify the drive to find and “isolate” the offenders.

“This time, we will not just fine them. Instead, we will ensure that these people are instantly isolated and then socially compelled to wear a mask. The idea is to ensure that every citizen demands that his or her fellow citizen is wearing a mask,” said an official at Lalbazar.

The program has been initiated by Commissioner Anuj Sharma emphasizing the need to wear masks. The police station as well as the traffic guard will take the responsibility to distribute masks, with the police emblem and the publicity logo on them. Tableaux have been designed. All police kiosks will come out with advertisements along with a tagline in Bengali — ‘Ekhono corona, royeche dapot, baire berole mask e support.’

“A few police stations in the country are asking those not wearing masks to do sit-ups. While that might not be the case here, the violator here might be asked to join the campaign by standing at the crossing or asking him to pledge before others that s/he was guilty and that his/her offense will not be repeated,” said a senior traffic department officer. “This is like helmet syndrome. Several of them are wearing them only after spotting cops. They are forgetting that they are to use the mask as a prevention against the virus,” added a senior divisional officer.