India has seen a steep increase in the number of domestic violence cases amid COVID-19 lockdown.
On Sunday (April 19), Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and his deputy Rohit Sharma shared a strong message among fellow countrymen to stand up in solidarity with the victims.
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Featuring in a video on domestic violence campaign, the duo of Kohli and Rohit talked about the rise in crime against men and women during this lockdown.
Apart from the two stars of Indian cricket, Bollywood actors such as Madhuri Dixit, Farhan Akhtar, Karan Johar, Dia Mirza, Anushka Sharma among others also appeared in the video and urged the citizens to break their silence on domestic violence.
Kohli shared the video on Instagram and captioned it as: "If you have been a victim, witness or a survivor of the domestic violence, please report."
India was under lockdown from March 25 in an unprecedented measure in the fight against Coronavirus crisis. The lockdown was scheduled to end on April 14 but to flatten the curve of growing COVID-19 cases, the government decided to extend it till May 3.
According to news agency PTI, the National Commission for Women has recorded as many as 587 complaints from March 23 to April 16 and out of which 239 are related to domestic violence.