The Telangana High Court today said that the liquor shops in the state had become the primary spreaders of Covid-19.
Speaking while dealing with a batch of petitions filed on the
concerning spike in Covid-19 cases in the state, it then proceeded to roundly admonish the Telangana government for its "failure" to effectively curb the spread of the disease.
Two days prior to today's hearing, Telangana DGP, M Mahender Reddy, had submitted a report to the court in which he had outlined the measures being taken to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
In his report, Reddy had said that the police had booked 22,000 cases against persons who had violated the stipulated Covid-19 safety norms, and added that a total of 2,416 cases had been booked against those who had failed to adhere to social distancing practices while 6 cases had been booked against those who had been caught spitting in public places.
The report, however, failed to satisfy the court, which faulted the concerned authorities for their "inadequate" and "half-hearted" efforts to control the rise in the number of cases in the state, and pointed out that nothing was being done to control the large crowds thronging pubs and cinema theatres.
The state's apex court also pulled up the TRS government for not performing enough RTPCR tests, and directed it to increase the current number of tests conducted daily by 70%, and to constitute an advisory committee of experts to streamline the prevention efforts.
Further, the state government was advised to conduct tests on those who had come to the state from outside, and to create containment zones in all the areas recording a high number of cases since it had already stated that it
did not want to impose a lockdown in Telangana.
Responding to the suggestions, the government told the HC that it would complete its sero-surveillance in six weeks.
The court then asked that a government report be submitted again after the implementation of the new measures by April 14.
The next hearing on the matter will take place on April 19.