38-year-old man found in train toilet at UP Jhansi
Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh:
On Thursday evening, the body of a 38-year-old migrant worker was discovered in the bathroom of a train from Jhansi station in Uttar Pradesh. The body had probably been lying there for several days – while the train was making a round trip – before being found by railroad workers who disinfected the coaches.
The body was identified as Mohan Lal Sharma, a resident of the Basti district of eastern UP. Mr. Sharma worked as a daily bet in Mumbai but, like hundreds of thousands of other migrants, he found himself without a job or money due to the brutal blockage.
Mr. Sharma managed to reach Jhansi on May 23, after which he and other migrants wishing to return home were sent by the district administration to the station to board a train bound for Gorakhpur, in about 70 km from Basti.
It is unclear whether Gorakhpur was the final destination or whether the train crossed the border to Bihar to return migrants from this state – official clarifications on this point are pending.
However, the same train returned to Jhansi on Wednesday and, while the rail workers disinfected the cars on Thursday, they were shocked to find Mr. Sharma’s body.
“Jhansi’s police called the village pradhan (chief) and we learned that he (Mr. Sharma) had 28,000 rupees, a bar of soap and books. He wanted to return because he was “There was no work,” Kanhaiya Lal Sharma, a parent, said.
“The police gave us the opportunity to recover the body from Jhansi,” he added.
The cops confirmed that an autopsy is underway on Mr. Sharma’s body and that it will be postponed after the publication of the COVID-19 test results.
More than 20 lakh migrants have returned to the UP in the past two months, and several lakhs are expected in the coming days, leaving the state facing multiple challenges – filtering and quarantining them, providing them with food and shelter and finally make sure they get a job.
Jhansi’s deeply disturbing incident comes two days after heartbreaking footage of a Bihar train station showing a baby playing with a shroud thrown over his dead mother, when people seem to go about their business without a second thought.
The treatment of migrants and the daily bets desperately trying to return home, traveling hundreds (often thousands) of miles with little or no money and food, have become one of the lasting images of the epidemic of coronavirus.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court, which previously declared that it was “impossible” to monitor this humanitarian crisis, ordered the center to develop a “uniform” policy on migrant travel.
