Indian police barricaded parts of one of Asia's biggest slums Friday after two coronavirus deaths, as under-pressure Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to dispel “darkness and uncertainty” with a national light show.
India so far has largely escaped the pandemic with 2,300 infections and 56 deaths, according to official figures, but two fatalities and a third infection in the Dharavi neighbourhood of Mumbai have set alarm bells ringing.
Authorities have set up eight “containment zones” in the area, home to as many as a million people living and working in cramped tin-roofed shanties, flats and small factories — made famous by the 2008 film “Slumdog Millionaire”.
Police inspector Rajesh Babu (C) wearing coronavirus-themed helmet speaks to a family on a motorbike at a checkpoint during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the coronavirus in Chennai on March 28, 2020. One minute they're dancing in the street in comical coronavirus helmets, the next they're seen beating people for flouting a nationwide lockdown — Indian police have played good cop, bad cop in a bid to halt the spread of coronavirus. The streets of India's cities have been largely deserted for more than a week of the government's 21-day lockdown — no mean feat in a country of 1.3 billion people famed for their flexible attitude towards authority. — AFP
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