Lucknow, May 2 (IANS): Three IPS officers have been given additional charge of three districts after their counterparts in these districts tested positive for Covid.

Arvind Chaturvedi has been given charge of Ayodhya district, Ashok Rai has been made Superintendent of Police (SP) Siddharth Nagar and Anil Pandey is SP Bhadohi.

A senior officer at the DGP headquarters said that SP Ayodhya Shailesh Pandey, SP Siddhartha Nagar Ram Abhilash Tripathi, and Ram Badan Singh SP of Bhadohi district have tested positive for coronavirus.

According to sources, a total of 85 gazetted officers are under the grip of Covid in the state while more than 600 non-gazetted policemen have tested positive in the second wave across the state.

Additional director general, law and order, Prashant Kumar said that the police department has adopted a slew of measures to shield its force from the pandemic and these include halting deployment of police personnel above 55 years of age in frontline duty, improvement in diet and reducing human intervention by increasing vigil through drones and CCTVs in the Covid hotspots.