Hyderabad: Night curfew's dread slowly vanishes in thin air

Hyderabad: As days pass by, the fear of night curfew slowly disappears from the collective psyche of the denizens. Despite police warnings, youth turn the bylanes into playing fields of cricket and football.

Even though the City police have made an appeal to the public to ensure that night curfew is implemented to break the chain of Coronavirus, youngsters who don't wish to remain within the walls can be seen outside their houses, while some of them particularly in parts of Old City engage in games.

The night curfew which was imposed on April 20 has been strictly followed by people but as days passed by night curfew norms go for a toss. As youngsters are engaging themselves within the lanes with games like 'gully cricket', with whatever resources they have.

Usually in the City, during Ramzan people prefer to sleep after the Sehri (pre-dawn meal) and Fajr prayers. It has been observed that after night curfew's time begins and cops end their first round of patrolling, these youngsters are seen playing in colonies after 11 pm.

They feel that the police might not patrol further. On a visit to the areas in Old City including Yakutpura, Talabkatta, Moghalpura, Chanchalguda, Jahanuma, Bahadurpura, Nampally, Aghapura, Mallepally, and some localities in Tolichowki the deserted roads are turned into playing fields where youngsters were seen playing Cricket, shuttle-cock, football, cycling etc.

Ironically, one of them is asked to keep a tight vigil on police vehicles passing, he is tasked to voice 'police aaray' on seeing the patrol vehicle. When asked why they were outside, a youth at Tolichowki replied, "Very rarely do we get such empty roads and we donot want to lose such an opportunity," said a group of boys playing tennis in bylane in Tolichowki.

Meanwhile even those girls, who always waited for an opportunity to play on roads, find the time to be a golden opportunity. Even families including husband and wife with their children were seen enjoying family game on a street in Gulshan Colony, Tolichowki.

Moreover, at some other places youth were seen loitering on roads even during the night curfew and not only youngsters but even elderly were seen sitting outside their houses on 'Chabutras'.