Coronavirus Lockdown: The police is pitching in to help people with birthdays, funerals and weddings.
Birthdays, weddings or even help with a funeral, the police in Delhi seems to be helping out with everything they can during the lockdown to slow the spread of coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Som Nath Paruthi, an officer at the police station in south Delhi's of Greater Kailash Police, received a call seeking help in the cremation of a 93-year-old woman in Vasant Kunj area. Despite the area not coming in his jurisdiction, Mr Paruthi and his team went along with a van and a priest and made other arrangements related to the elderly woman's cremation.
"Their son was not here. The funeral was carried out by the son and daughter-in-law. Our staff felt content that we could help them in such a difficult time. These are abnormal times and many people don't have their families by their side and we try to help people out of humanity," Som Nath Paruthi told NDTV.
Delhi Police recently changed its Twitter profile image to one with the caption "Delhi Police, Dil Ki Police (police with a heart)", complete with the illustation of a heart. "Delhi Police, the #DilKiPolice is leaving no stone unturned to enforce the lockdown guidelines and at the same time, reach out to each and every needy person in the city," Delhi Police tweeted on April 28.
Rushina Gautam, wife of a late Army Brigadier, had thought that her 71st birthday would be a dull affair. But to her pleasant surprise, the police came and celebrated it with her. "I usually celebrate it with all my family members. But this time, I thought nobody will be able to come and that we will do it virtually on the 'House Party' mobile application. But the Station House Officer called to wish me and then brought all his convoy of bikes and gifted me a plant. I was very happy to be treated like this. My neighbours also came out on their balconies seeing such a big convoy outside my house. I will always cherish these memories," Ms Gautam said,
Recently, a woman had named her newborn after Dayaveer Singh, a police constable in Delhi's Ashok Vihar. The cop had helped her reach the hospital. He took the woman to Hindu Rao Hospital after the family waited for an ambulance but did not arrive for two hours.
In south Delhi's Kalkaji, Kushal Walia, 27, and Pooja, 25, received help from the police in getting married at a temple and the 'vidaayi' ceremony took place in a police gypsy.
For migrant labourers at a shelter home in Maidan Garhi, the police made special arrangements for them to watch a movie so that the labourers could get some moments of relief amid the stress over the lockdown.
Even in other cities, police has been going out of their way. In Hyderabad, police chief Anjani Kumar went with cakes and balloons when a little Myra's parents who are abroad could not come for her first birthday. In Punjab's Mansa district, a convoy of police patrolling bikes reached the home of an eight-year-old boy with a cake and played the birthday song on a speaker to celebrate.
(With inputs from Uma Sudhir and Mohammad Ghazali)