entire country witnessed sights of policemen brutally assaulting and beating people found out on roads and streets

India’s premier human rights organization, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), in a 3,600 word statement, has demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in consultation with chief ministers, should immediately consider rolling back of the full lockdown in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, insisting, if it all, India should “have calibrated, limited lockdown areas.”
Wanting that the Government of India (GoI) to do this by taking people into confidence by evolving “a transparent method” to determine the regions and areas where the lockdown can be lifted totally or partially, PUCL regretted, the lockdown measures are being enforced “by using police power and prosecuting people for breaking the curfew-like conditions imposed on people.”
Pointing out that “the entire country witnessed sights of policemen brutally assaulting and beating people found out on roads and streets”, suggesting a clear “breach of power and abuse of law”, PUCL said, there is “repeated promulgation of sec 144 CrPC prohibitory orders as a means of enforcing the lockdown” in a “completely unaccountable manner”.
“To illustrate”, the PUCL statement, signed by Ravi Kiran Jain, president, and Dr V. Suresh, general secretary, said, “The latest statistics from Rajasthan show that there have been 8,162 preventive arrests with 1,152 FIRs being registered during the lockdown period. Over 2,000 people have been arrested and over Rs 2.7 crore has been collected as fines under the Motor Vehicles Act.”