Under level 4 of the regulations — which included bans on the sale of tobacco and alcohol — police arrested 79,266 people. Failing to abide by the night curfew saw 15,532 arrests and the sale of tobacco products landed 5,593 people in trouble with the law.
In other cases, people were arrested for holding a night vigil , performing male and female initiation practices and failing to comply with the direction of a Covid-19 designated judge to protect the privacy of people whose data was collected . Nearly 300,000 people were charged for contravening regulations which were conceived by the national command council on a whimReacting to the minister's answers, Whitfield said Cele and the police service had unwittingly, during the lockdown, criminalised ordinary citizens.