Hyderabad (Telangana): The Telangana government on Tuesday has imposed a night curfew in the wake of mounting Covid-19 case counts.
The curfew will be in effect from 9 pm to 5 am, till 30 April.
All shops, offices and hotels will be closed by 8 pm. However, hospitals, pharmacies, medical laboratories and institutions handling the distribution of essential commodities and services including print, electronic media, petrol pumps etc are exempted from the curfew.
Many other states including Kerala, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have imposed curfews to put a check on the rising number of cases.
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The move comes after the Telangana High Court directed the State government to issue COVID-19 guidelines within 48 hours to minimize footfalls at liquor shops, restaurants, marriage halls and cinemas, among other crowded places.
A bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, hearing a batch of PILs (public interest litigations) on COVID-19 issues, wanted restrictions during weekends as part of the containment measures against COVID-19.
The bench expected the State government to also take independent decisions notwithstanding the guidelines of the Central government.
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This comes after the Advocate General informed the court that the State government has been following the guidelines of the Centre. The court said the government has to take a call on whether imposing curfew/lockdown as one of the containment measures during weekends wherever it is necessary for restricting crowds.
"We will review. We will consider passing appropriate orders (in the next hearing)," the Bench further said.
It directed the government to file a report before it while posting the matter to April 23.
In a new record daily spike, Telangana logged 5,926 new Covid-19 cases and 18 deaths, health officials said Tuesday.
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Massive surge in Covid cases continued across the state as 25 out of 33 districts recorded over 100 cases during the last 24-hours. Four districts saw over 400 new cases.
The fresh cases pushed the state's cumulative tally to 3,61,359 while 18 fatalities have taken the death toll to 1,856.
According to a bulletin by the state health department, the case fatality remained at 0.51 percent against the national average of 1.2 per cent.
