Punjab suspends public transport services, Kashmir under virtual lockdown

Chandigarh/Srinagar: After the death of a Corona-positive patient due to cardiac arrest, the Punjab government on Thursday seemed to be heading towards an apparent lockdown with the government banning private and public bus services, stopping all public dealings in government offices and suspending OPD services in hospitals, among others.

The other drastic preventive measures that the state government resorted to included a decision to mandatorily stamp recently-returned NRIs with indelible ink, close all dental colleges and hospitals and train third and fourth year MBBS students for handling corona-hit patients.

The decisions were taken by a seven-member ministerial panel set up under the chairpersonship of state's Local Bodies minister Brahm Mohindra to monitor the emerging situation in the state amid the global outbreak of the Coronavirus.

Mohindra announced the decisions stating that the private and public bus services in the state have been banned from Friday midnight to prevent the public from moving out of their houses without an emergency.

The state education board's examinations of Classes X and XII have been cancelled till March 31.

Meanwhile, Kashmir was put under virtual lockdown on Thursday as authorities scrambled to come up with a strategy to contain the spread of Coronavirus in the Valley, a day after a woman with travel history to Saudi Arabia tested positive for the disease.

Public transport in Srinagar was ordered off the roads, while markets were shut on orders of the authorities. With agency inputs