A dip in a pond, taking the car out from the garage and buying a packet of cigarettes were some of the reasons why people flouted Covid curbs in a Behala containment zone on Wednesday.

Metro spent more than an hour in the area in the afternoon to see many people flouting the curbs. Guard rails had been placed at the entrance to two lanes. But people entered and left the area through unguarded lanes and alleys at will.

No amount of enforcement will be enough if people do not take the virus threat seriously, policemen and civic volunteers posted at the containment zone said.

The area

“Baidya Para High School to 46/1 Bhuban Mohan Roy Road” is one of the 24 containment zones in the city and the only one in Behala so far, according to the Bengal state portal.

The area is less than a kilometre from DH Road in Sakherbazar. Bhuban Mohan Roy Road is a lane off Motilal Gupta Road, the road that connects Sakherbazar to Tollygunge.

On Wednesday Metro saw a series of guard rails tied with a rope at the two ends of two lanes in front of a school.

Cops and civic volunteers were camping inside the school as it was raining when Metro reached the spot around noon. A man on a bike was leaving the area with two women on the pillion. They had seemed like a Calcutta Municipal Corporation logbook and medicines. “We are from the civic body’s health unit. We came here to check on patients and their family members,” one of the women said before leaving.

The scene

Two aged women bathed in a pond just outside the containment zone and walked back inside, making their way past the guard rails. It was drizzling and only a civic volunteer stood on the road.

A feeble “kothaye jachhen (where are you going)” was all he could muster, but in vain. He knew the answer and pleaded helplessness. “All are aged residents of this area. What can I do?”

Two youths on a cycle entered one of the barricaded lanes. Realising they were being pictured, they tried to turn back. Asked why they had entered the sealed area, one of them answered: “We were in a rush. What is the big deal? We came out, right?”

It was raining and the cops were inside when another woman appeared from a lane behind the school, lifted the rope and walked into the zone.

She rang the doorbell a house and entered when someone opened the door.

Barely five minutes later, a woman with a bucket came up to the guard rails. A policeman had come out of the school by then. He gestured towards the woman, asking her to go back. “I will just fetch water and return,” the woman replied. The cop shouted and asked her to go back. It worked.

A middle-aged man entered a two-storey apartment in the containment zone, less than 20m from the police barricade. The man with an umbrella entered through one of the several unguarded alleys. “I keep my car in a garage on the ground floor. My house is outside the containment zone,” he said when asked why he had entered a sealed area.

Another middle-aged man stepped out of a house in the containment zone and walked towards the same direction that the car owner had come from. “I will just go to a shop and get a packet of cigarettes. I am wearing mask and gloves,” he said.

Policespeak

The zone is in the Haridevpur police station area. A team of men and women from the station worked in shifts in the zone. “From vegetables to groceries, we have been delivering essential items to residents. But people are still stepping out and getting angry if stopped,” an officer said.

He said a colleague had to avert a “missile”, a piece of brick, thrown from the roof of one of the houses inside the zone on Tuesday. “Many residents had been sent back yesterday. It was possibly out of a grudge,” he said.

“Strict curbs and vigil will not be of any help unless people realise the importance of staying at home,” another policeman said.