A dense blanket of smog and pollutants engulfed Delhi and its surrounding areas on Monday morning, a direct consequence of the prolonged fireworks display during the night of Diwali.
Last week, the Supreme Court reiterated its ban on bursting crackers across the National Capital Region, as the region is already battling severe air pollution.
Despite the complete ban, numerous residents of Delhi-NCR were found disregarding the law, igniting fireworks both on Saturday and Sunday night.
"Don't understand the point of a "ban" when ruling party leaders themselves are violating it in the heart of the capital. AQI has hit 999 - machines can't calculate beyond that," Trinamool Congress (TMC) party parliamentarian wrote in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Numerous politicians and supporters of the BJP also flouted the ban set by the apex court, sharing pictures of themselves reveling in bursting firecrackers.
Pollution in the Delhi-NCR region has been high since the beginning of November. Apart from firecracker burning, the other prominent reasons for deteriorating AQI are stubble burning in neighbouring states as well as weather conditions, such as a drop in temperature and low wind speedsduring this time of the year, what makes it difficult to disperse pollutants.