Bengaluru, Apr 23: A strict weekend curfew to contain COVID-19 came into effect in the main cities and towns of Karnataka including Benglauru from Friday night, and it will remain in force till Monday morning.

The government has ordered the weekend curfew from 9 pm on Friday to 6 am on Monday.

This arrangement will remain in effect till May 4.

Roads were barricaded, vehicles were stopped, and commuters roaming around unnecessarily were asked to go back to their houses in the urban areas.

In Bengaluru, all the flyovers were barricaded and the government buses came to a halt.

Only medical stores remained open while police vehicles, ambulances and government vehicles engaged in COVID-19 duty were seen plying.

There was a mad rush in Bengaluru from 8 pm to return home. However, a downpour prevented several commuters from reaching their destination on time.

Taking into account the rainy weather, the police relaxed the norm and did not fine people who were seen travelling even after 9 pm.

Meanwhile, the government further modified its order on the strict rules to control COVID till May 4.

It said only construction activities where workers are available on site and no one is required to be brought from outside would be permitted.

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Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.

The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.

Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.

The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.

India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.

In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.

Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.

The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.

It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.

Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.

The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.

The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.

On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.