Social distancing goes for a toss in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar as crowd welcomes monk

Sagar: Defying the social distancing guidelines for preventing spread of COVID-19, a crowd gathered to welcome a monk and his group when they arrived at a town in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district.

Some videos of the incident went viral on social media, following which police have started an investigation into it.

A large number of people came out on a road on Monday when a group of Jain monks, headed by Muni Pranam Sagar, reached Banda town, located about 35 km from the district headquarters.

In the video clips shared on social media, a large number of people without masks were purportedly seen out on the road to welcome the monk and his group.

When contacted, Additional Superintendent of Police Praveen Bhuria told PTI on Wednesday that they got information about the incident from videos shared on social media.

"This seems to be a case of violation of preventive orders issued under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) Section 144. Directives have been issued to Banda police station officials to register a case after verification of the videos," he said.

Banda police station in-charge Kamal Singh said they are going to register a case against 400 to 500 unidentified people, for violation of the preventive orders issued during the nationwide lockdown.