In a bid to prevent large gatherings in Mumbai, the police imposed section 144 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) within Mumbai commissionerate limits prohibiting rallies and protest marches involving people and vehicles over the next two days, an official said to news agency.
The order, issued by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations), will be in force for 48 hours on Saturday and Sunday.
“It has been issued to prevent danger to human life from the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 as well as a threat to the law and order situation against the backdrop of violence that took place in Amravati, Malegaon and Nanded,” he said.
The development comes after the state reported seven new cases of the Omicron variant on Friday including a three-and-half-year-old girl. A little more than a week after the new variant was first detected in the country, Maharashtra is now leading the charts with 17 cases. As per the Mumbai civic body, the capital city has reported five such cases. India presently has 32 Omicron cases from five states.
Three of the COVID-19 cases reported from the state on Friday were from Mumbai, while four were from the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. While four of these individuals are asymptomatic, three reportedly display mild symptoms. Excluding the toddler (who is ineligible), four of the new cases stem from fully vaccinated individuals. One has taken a single dose, while another is unvaccinated.
Meanwhile, data from the BMC’s fifth genomic sequencing exercise indicates that the COVID-19 variants currently circulating in Mumbai include ‘descendants’ of the Delta variant. According to reports, Delta derivatives now make up a significant number of COVID-19 cases in the city.
As of Saturday morning, India has 93,277 active COVID-19 cases and has administered more than 1.31 billion doses of vaccine. Maharashtra has a little more than 10 thousand active cases.