Procedures to travel between zones expected to remain the same, says Dev Kumar

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The state government has just applied for a ban on movement between Zone 1 and Zone 2 and is awaiting instruction from the Ministry of Health. File Photo

KUCHING: Procedures to apply for travel between zones are expected to remain the same as during the Movement Control Order (MCO) once the state government has been granted permission to enforce a ban on movement between Zone 1 and Zone 2, said Sarawak Deputy Police Commissioner Dato Dev Kumar.

Zone 1 refers to red and yellow zones, while Zone 2 refers to green zones.

However, he said this was simply an estimation as no official instructions have been received yet regarding this.

“The state government has just applied for a ban on movement between Zone 1 and Zone 2 and is awaiting instruction from the Ministry of Health.

“Once we have received the green light from the Director-General of Health allowing Sarawak to enforce that restriction, we will start on midnight Aug 1,” he told reporters when met at the launch of National Month and Fly the Jalur Gemilang Campaign today,

Dev said that there would be exceptions for certain situations, which will be announced later.

“These exceptions do not require permission from the police.

“Only ordinary movement would require a police permit, and the forms can be obtained from police stations,” he added.

Dev revealed that the ban will only apply to the two zones, where Zone 1 covers Kuching, Samarahan and Serian divisions.

“People cannot move outside of Zone 1 to Zone 2 (and vice versa). That means people from Samarahan cannot go to Simunjan, people from Serian cannot go to Sri Aman, people from Kuching cannot go to Lundu, and people from Padawan cannot go to Bau.

“Expect police to conduct five to six road blocks covering those areas,” he said.

On Monday, Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Aidi Ismail had said that the police have identified five locations to conduct road blocks to curb Covid-19 in Sarawak, following a directive on travel restrictions as announced by Sarawak State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

The restriction is expected to be enforced from Aug 1 to Aug 14.