Coronavirus: Indian police force 71-year-old to do squats as punishment for breaking lockdown rules

Man allegedly caught opening vegetable shop during nationwide restrictions

Police in India have been caught on video reportedly forcing a 71-year-old man to do squats as punishment for breaking the country’s lockdown restrictions.

The elderly man was allegedly made to perform the exercise after opening his vegetable shop in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district, the Times of India reports.

A video of the incident shows a man dressed in a white pair of shorts and shirt, who appears to be the greengrocer, squatting all the way to the floor with his hands on his head several times.

At one point the shopkeeper, who is accompanied by a younger man also performing the exercise for a time, puts his hands on his knees as he appears to struggle to get back up.

Three men wearing face masks, including one who looks as if he is wearing a police uniform and another with a lanyard around his neck, watch on as he completes his punishment.

A senior police officer later said the deputy ranger should not have acted the way he did, according to the Times of India.

Reports have emerged of people caught breaking lockdown restrictions imposed since 25 March being forced to do sit ups, squats and the “murga” punishment — a stress position resembling that of a rooster which involves squatting and looping the arms behind the knees and then holding the ears.

Photographers have captured images of people being publicly shamed as punishment across the country, including in Mumbai, Amritsar, New Delhi and Kolkata.

India’s coronavirus death toll has reached more than 2,200, while it has recorded more than 70,700 cases of the disease.