Srinagar: In a year impacted massively by COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory saw a massive increase in cases registered under the Indian Penal Code(IPC) for disobedience of orders promulgated by public servants, an official report has revealed.
The report- Crime in India 2020 – released by the National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) earlier this week shows that J&K saw an increase of 514 percent in cases registered under section 188 IPC (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant).
According to the statistics, 2880 cases were registered under section 188 IPC in Jammu and Kashmir last year , whereas only 560 such cases were registered in the non-pandemic year of 2019.
Officials told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that these cases were registered mainly for violating restrictions imposed by the authorities on movement of public to prevent spread of COVID-19.
Like other states and UTs, strict restrictions were imposed in J&K on March 24, 2020 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced pan- India lockdown as a preventive measure against the COVID-19.
The first case of COVID-19 was detected on March 09, 2020 in J&K. Two suspected cases with high virus load were detected and isolated on March 4 in Government Medical College, Jammu. One of them became the first confirmed positive case on March 09, 2020—(KNO)