KANYAKUMARI: “Who is

?” is one of the 10 questions in the questionnaire titled

Kanyakumari

District Police

Awareness

– I that was prepared by the police for youth caught loitering in streets during the

. Around 200 youths have taken up the test over the last two days.

For each wrong answer, they have to do 10 squats (thoppukaranam) as punishment. After the test with questions aimed at enlightening them on the magnitude of the Covid-19 crisis, they are made to take an oath to abide by the government’s lockdown. The questionnaire is fast circulated in social media.

“The questionnaire is to enlighten the youth who have not taken the lockdown seriously. Everywhere videos of the police beating the

are being circulated. Such beating only makes the violator angry and he does not realise the purpose of the stringent enforcement by the police,” said Thuckalay DSP M Ramachandran.

The police came out with the novel way to make the violators think and know the reason for the implementation. The questionnaire begins with a question about the country where Covid-19 first spread. The question on corona’s lover is the second one aimed at building the curiosity of the violator and make them go to the next questions, he said.

The questionnaire

“Though it is not that difficult, none has answered the lover question correctly. We are planning to announce the answer to that question post April 14 when the lockdown comes to an end. At the most, the violators have got eight marks out of 10 and the average is six,” the DSP said.

Questions for which most of them gave wrong answers include on social distancing, the country most affected for not abiding by the lockdown and which part of the body the virus affects. After punishment (squats), the police tell them how Covid-19 affected people in Italy.

This model of harmless punishment cum enlightening is in practice at all the 13 law and order police stations – Arumanai, Kulasekaram, Marthandam, Thiruvattar, Kaliyakkavilai, Thuckalay, Keeriparai, Kadaiyalumoodu, Kotticode, Pazhugal, Pechiparai, Arugani and Kuzhithurai all-woman police station – and the two traffic police stations in Thuckalay sub division.

As the questionnaire has been “leaked,” the police are planning to prepare another one with a set of 10 true or false questions.