The government is planning to strictly enforce locking more areas in the capital to be declared ‘Red Zones’ in a bid to contain further transmission of coronavirus.
Such lockdown measures would be imposed with the help of the respective local government administrations or the local ward councilors and of course the police force.
Sources said that the announced lockdown which would restrict movement of people living within certain areas in the specified community, may come in force at any time.
Meanwhile, police and the local administrations in the city have started to prepare lists of low-income people living in different red zones. They are also preparing lists of volunteers so that various essential commodities and other materials could be reached to them during the lockdown periods.
According to officials from the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), volunteers and others concerned are being trained to strictly implement the lockdown.
Ahmed Imtiaz Mannafi, Ward Councilor of Ward-38 under DSCC, said, “We are taking advance preparation so that we can implement lockdown in my area immediately after orders come in this regard.”
“We are also preparing lists of low-income people so that they can get relief materials during the lockdown period”, said Mannafi and continued as saying that they are also preparing a list a group of volunteers who would work to supply demands of the people under the lockdown area.
It could be mentioned that the Wari area was also supposed to come under lockdown along with East Rajabazar in the capital. However, it did not happen for an unknown reason.
Meanwhile, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Mohammad Shafiqul Islam said neither the DSCC nor the DNCC have formally informed them to implement lockdown in red zone areas.
“However, police are ready to implement the lockdown or any other government order,” the DMP Commissioner said and added that DMP has already taken various advance preparations in this regard.
It is known to all that the government has specified three areas--Red Zone, Yellow Zone and Green Zone--to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. As part of the move, a total of 45 areas have been identified as Red Zones considering them as the highly risky areas. Of them, there are 17 Red Zones under DNCC areas and the rest 28 under the DSCC areas.
Apart from in the capital Dhaka, different urban areas in Chattogram division, Gazipur, Narsinghdi, Narayanganj and some other districts have also identified red zones as instructed by the government authorities.
But, the process for the implementation of the lockdown is still under discussion.
Sources said the technical committee in the Department of Health remains busy with the mapping of the Red Zone areas. Unless the committee finalizes its mapping, the lockdown system could not be implemented.
As per the latest information, 45 more people died from coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours on Friday. With those 45 deceased people, the death toll stood at 1,388 while the total number of infections in the country stands at 1,05,535.
