NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is likely to hear this week a PIL seeking extension of financial and insurance benefits for doctors, nurses and health workers to police while arguing that they are as much frontline corona warriors as the health providers.The PIL filed by a decorated police officer Bhanupratap Barge sought a direction to the governments "to provide ‘risk and hardship’ allowance, incentives in form of bonus, additional salary to the police officers who are presently serving on the frontline" to enforce lockdown to prevent spread of Covid-19 in the country.Filed through advocate Amit Pai, the petition said death of police personnel due to COVID-19 in Madhya Pradesh , Punjab and several other cases of thee personnel testing positive for the virus is a clear indication that ‘even a protector needs protection and safety’. "It is time that Government must take effective measures and steps to ensure good health and safety of the police personnel across the country and boost their moral by at least extending some financial support to all police personnel instrumental in containing spread of Covid-19," Bagre said.Although some states like Haryana and Telangana have taken the decision to double salaries of police personnel, some other states have taken retrograde steps of slashing their salaries between 25-35%, Bagre alleged. He said the population to police ration in India, one of the lowest in the world, has put the entire police force under severe strain as they are mandated to strictly enforce lockdown as well as maintain law and order situations."In addition, despite being attacked at several places, they have shown exemplary courage, conviction and dedication to the duty in implementing the lockdown and hence deserve financial and insurance incentives as has been done for doctors, nurses and health workers," he said.