According to reports, in April, a total of 68 cops from the Maharashtra Police department died of COVID-19 as the state saw the pandemic’s second wave.
The toll in April assumes significance as an equal number of cops had succumbed to the virus in the past five months.
In the past four days, total 20 cops died of coronavirus. Of these, four were from Mumbai, three from Ahmednagar, one each from the Special Investigation Department (SID) Mumbai, Thane, Thane rural, Pune city, Pune rural, Pune railway, Nashik rural, Osmanabad, Beed, Hingoli, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli and Gondia.
Confirming the development, Sanjeev Singhal, additional director general (ADG), administration, Maharashtra Police mentioned that it was observed that vaccination has been effective in decreasing the infection’s impact on our personnel. Hence, the department is trying their best to get all police personnel vaccinated as soon as possible. Excluding Mumbai, of 1.5 lakh people in our force, more than 1.3 lakh have got the first dose. Over 74,000 have taken the second dose, added the police official.
From March 22 last year till May 1, 2021, total 422 police personnel died of COVID-19 in the state police and around 10 per cent of them got infected while they were not on duty. Cops, who get infected during leave for 14 days, are not considered to be “on duty”.
At 87, the highest toll was seen in September last year when the cases had peaked. Total 55 and 38 deaths were reported in August and October 2020, respectively. A downward spike was seen from November last year till March this year when total 68 cops died but the death toll saw a sharp spike with 68 deaths in April.
Total 3,811 personnel are currently infected by COVID-19 in the state police. Of them, 165 tested positive on Friday and including 52 cops who took the first dose and 34 cops who took the second dose.
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