Huge crowd welcomes monk in Madhya Pradesh, social distancing goes for a toss

Banda: Amid an inexorable and worrying rise in coronavirus cases in India - the number of COVID-19 cases rose by 3,525 over the past 24 hours, government data showed this morning, hundreds gathered in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district , in blatant violation of social distancing protocols, to celebrate the arrival of a Jain monk.

Madhya Pradesh is one of the states most badly hit by the novel coronavirus outbreak, with 3,986 confirmed cases and 225 deaths linked to the infectious virus.

No social distancing, attempted or otherwise, was in evidence in the city of Banda, with visuals from news agency showing thousands of men and women swarming around the monk Pramansagar and his retinue."Directions have been given to investigate and take action against the organisers," Praveen Bhuria, Additional Superindent of Police (Sagar), said, adding that both social distancing norms and orders banning large gatherings (under Section 144), were apparently violated.