People stay indoors on Day I of weekend shutdown in 11 dists
Closed shops in Cuttack on Saturday
BHUBANESWAR: The weekend shutdown in 11 districts, which started on Saturday, was near complete with people staying indoors and the roads wearing a deserted look. Police hardly had to use force as people adhered to the rules.
Except police personnel and the people exempted from the shutdown, not a single soul was to be found on the streets.
Even the small kiosks inside narrow lanes in different localities kept their shutters down. For Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Bhadrak, this is the second phase of shutdown as they had experienced one from April 5 to 8. The remaining eight districts had not witnessed a total shutdown except the 24-hour Janata Curfew on March 22.
Except stray incidents of police detaining people from exempted categories at Rasulgarh Square here, there was no report of any confusion or wrongful detention of people allowed to move because of emergency services. The police kept putting up the barricades at the vantage points on national highway 5 and other important arteries both in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
There was police deployment at the entry and exit point of both the cities as people usually shuttle between the two through two routes — the national highway and the Trisulia bridge.
Twin cities police commissioner Sudhanshu Sarangi said 50 platoons of police force were deployed in the twin cities.