KOZHIKODE: Love is in the air. But alas, so is the deadly coronavirus. The lockdown implemented in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic threw cold water on the elopement plan of a young couple in Thamarassery, who has now been booked for violating lockdown rules. The incident happened last Saturday, when the Thamarassery police received a complaint that a woman from Chamal village had gone missing. The police later found that the girl had eloped with her boyfriend to Ekarool, where the latter resides.
The 21-year-old woman and the 23-year-old man, who reached the Thamarassery station on police demand, were produced before the first class judicial magistrate court in Thamarassery. In the court, the woman asserted that she had moved to the man’s house out of her own free will. It is learnt that the woman’s family was against their marriage as the duo belonged to different religions.
Noting that both of them were adults, the court allowed them to go. However, as an elopement is not an ‘emergency’, the court also ruled their act as a violation of the government-imposed lockdown. “During the lockdown, people are only allowed to go out for essential commodities or services. What the couple did was against the rule.
So, we have booked them under the Kerala Epidemic Disease Ordinance Act,” said a Thamarassery police official. As of Thursday, a total of 20 cases have been registered in Thamarassery in connection with lockdown violation. However, it is for the first time that a couple has been booked together for the same.