Coronavirus lockdown: center said hundreds of thousands of migrants were sent home on trains
Lucknow:
Spending his days under a tree outside a village in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, Sarvesh Kumar remembers the time when hundreds of people came to see him when his wedding procession reached the village. But now, on his return from Gujarat, the villagers have asked him to stay away.
Sarvesh is one of the many migrant workers returning home to Uttar Pradesh who believed that their inhuman two-month ordeal would finally end when they arrived home. But the fear of the coronavirus is such that in many regions of the state, migrants are not allowed to enter their villages. As a result, they are asked to spend at least 14 days in quarantine in the fields or under a tree.
“They (the villagers) didn’t let me in. They said,” Don’t come in, stay out. “What could the in-laws do?” Said Sarvesh.
Like Sarvesh, Dev Singh too was in for a bad surprise when he returned home to the village of Hardaspur. He was once a highly respected man in the village outside of which he stands under a tree these days.
“I waited there for 50 days. But the state of the country has not improved. There are no facilities here. No one has come to see me. There is no access to food or anything, “he said.
Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers and their families had to fend for themselves after India made a brutal stop in late March – two months after the coronavirus pandemic hit the country.
Unemployed and without access to food, migrants went to their homes thousands of kilometers away, walking or taking bikes and trucks. Dozens of people fell ill or died during their journey, either from fatigue or accident.
Temperatures have reached 50 degrees in parts of India, adding to the suffering of workers and families on the move.
After more than six weeks of horrific scenes of pregnant women and exhausted children trying to return home, the government has launched special trains for them.
The comforts of home, however, remain elusive for many. In Ballia district, Parashuram is quarantined in a field outside the village of Durjanpur. He had left for an engagement ceremony at Panipat and was blocked due to the lock. The school where he was supposed to be quarantined reported a case of coronavirus, so he was not allowed to enter the village.
“There were a few cases at school, so I thought it was best for me to stay on the ground. So I made arrangements to stay here,” he said.
At the other end of the state, in the district of Deoria, all entrances to the village of Mathiya Mafi must be closed. Men with sticks guard the paths so that no one can sneak in.
“The barricades have been erected for the safety of the villagers. Foreigners must not enter and people must not leave,” said village chief Harikesh Yadav.
Another 15 people died of a coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, while 179 new infections brought the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state to 7,170, officials said. Like other states, Uttar Pradesh has seen an increase in the number of cases since the government started sending migrants on trains and buses.
