Amid COVID-19 surge, Haryana government imposes weekend curfew in nine districts

To check the spiralling number of COVID-19 cases, the Haryana government on Friday announced that a lockdown will be imposed in nine districts over the weekend. The weekend curfew will come into force at 10 pm on Friday and remain effective till 5 am on Monday, an official order stated.

The districts where the curfew will be in force are Gurgaon, Faridabad, Panchkula, Sonipat, Rohtak, Karnal, Hisar, Sirsa and Fatehabad, according to the order.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is again posing a threat to public health. The Haryana government has considered it necessary to take effective measures to prevent its spread in the state..," the order read.


"There will be a weekend lockdown starting from 10 pm on April 30 (Friday) till 5 am on May 3 (Monday)," it said.

Residents must stay indoors during the lockdown period. No person shall leave their home or move on foot, in a vehicle, or stand, or roam around in any public place during the lockdown period, it added.

Those exempted from the curfew are people tasked with law and order, emergencies and municipal service duties and government machinery tasked with COVID-19 related duties.

There shall be no curbs on those engaged in manufacturing of essential goods and movement of both essential and non-essential goods and people appearing for exams.

Haryana had on Thursday recorded the biggest single-day spike of 97 COVID-19 fatalities that took the toll to 4,118, while 13,947 fresh cases pushed the total tally to 4,74,145, according to a health department bulletin.