delhi

Updated: Mar 24, 2020 13:01 IST

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Tuesday that no new coronavirus case has been reported in the national capital in last 24 hours. The biggest challenge, he said on Twitter, is not to let the situation go out of control.

“No new case has been reported in Delhi in the last 24 hours. Five people have been discharged from hospitals after getting treatment. But we should not be happy. The biggest challenge now is to not let situation go out of control, we need your support,” Kejriwal said on Twitter on Tuesday.

Also Watch | Coronavirus: Delhi CM announces complete lockdown till March 31

Delhi has joined 30 states and union territories in clamping down on public transport, gatherings and other non-essential activity by appealing to people that social distancing is the sole weapon against Covid-19 entering a full-blown community transmission stage. In this phase of a public health crisis, an individual’s infection can’t be traced to its source.

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Public transport services, shops, markets, religious places, privates offices, commercial establishments and factories are not being allowed to function in Delhi till March 31. The Delhi Police have imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), banning gatherings.

The drastic measures followed sweeping lockdown announcements by the Centre on Sunday. The central government has suspended trains, inter-state buses and Metro rail services across the country till March 31 and locked down about 80 districts. On Monday, the central government directed the states to strictly enforce the lockdown and take legal actions against violators.

The railway stations mostly wore a deserted look, with the alighting passengers heading out the only ones to be seen apart from the railway employees. Many of them walked to the nearest bus terminals, which were also shut. Delhi is served by three inter-state bus terminals – Kashmere Gate, Sarai Kale Khan and Anand Vihar – and thousands of buses depart from these terminals every day.

A large number of the people stranded at some of these terminals belonged to Nepal and were returning from states such as Karnataka and Kerala.

While streets in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and Ghaziabad were largely deserted, there was a build-up at the borders which posed a security and public health challenge to the authorities. The police could be seen telling people that they would issue challans to book violators and using loudspeakers to warn those getting into debates.