Janta curfew: What people are tweeting as they prepare to observe the day

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal, the nation is gearing up to observe Janta curfew that’ll start at 7 am. It will be a 14 hour long self-curfew that’ll end at 9 pm tonight. With a little more than an hour to go, people have already started taking to social media, especially on Twitter, to share how they’re going to follow the curfew and stand in solidarity with their fellow countrymen.

Many have encouraged people to take this seriously and do their bit in this fight against novel coronavirus. They wrote that it’s the way to break the chain of the pandemic that is tightening its grip around the world.

Here’s a Twitter user who urged everyone to stay indoors. His tweet, when translated from Hindi, reads, “I request all Indians to make the curfew successful and keep the corona virus from spreading. And yes please do not come out of your house after 9 pm to celebrate the achievement.

A Twitter user tweeted “we don’t have so many hospitals in #India to accommodate this huge population.” Then urged everyone to follow the Janta curfew not just today but for the whole coming week.

Yet another shared a post with a simple yet important message:

A Twitter user - quite rightly - defined the pandemic as a battle. Then they used a popular quote to explain the importance of the day:

“Let’s share the burden and own up to our responsibilities. It’s in the hands of the community now,” tweeted a Twitter user. Along with that, he also shared an image depicting an apt situation of how the health workers fighting in the frontline and treating those in need.

A few people tweeted that some will go out during this self-imposed curfew and it’s because they are the emergency workers who need to go out amid COVID-19 outbreak. Here are some of the tweets:

A few hours, famous sand artists Sudarsan Pattnaik also took to Twitter to share this and urge people to follow Janta curfew.

Several states have taken different steps to make Janta curfew a success. While Delhi has closed major market places and suspended Metro service for the day, Maharashtra has announced that the Central Railway will cancel all of its 120 outstation train services between 4 am and 10 pm.