Coronavirus update: LPG, water vendors, meat shop owners in Delhi allege cops target them

Nimesh Kumar, tore out a page from a notebook he borrowed from his neighbour Thursday morning and frantically jotted down the apartment numbers, shouted out by a group of people wearing surgical masks who stood facing his small makeshift kiosk in south Delhi’s Khirki village.

“There are too many orders and it is difficult to deliver them all within a short interval. The police do not think twice before swinging their lathis at us when they spot us on the streets,” said Kumar, who works with a shop that delivers 20-litre drinking water jars in the neighbourhood.

Earlier this week, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the Union home ministry had issued an order elaborating on a list of exemptions categorised as essentials.