The coronavirus lockdown has affected migrant workers who are mostly daily wage earners the most. They have been facing a scarcity of both money and food. In the absence of public transport, a lot of them have taken to walking back to their native villages on foot.
According to The Economic Times, around 1000 migrants hailing from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal gathered near the Bandra West railway station at 3 pm yesterday protesting the lockdown extension and hoping that train services will be resumed to take them home.
Migrants labours are on street in Bandra, Mumbai today, demanding either give them proper shelter, food or let them go at their natives places in Uttar Pradesh , Bihar etc pic.twitter.com/ckrPPB804W
— Sudhir Suryawanshi (@ss_suryawanshi) April 14, 2020
Vijayalaxmi Hiremath, the senior police inspector at Bandra police station was quoted saying, “We tried to make them understand and asked them to return to their houses, but the crowd was not in a mood to listen.”
Local Police officials went to the spot, talked to them&tried to convince them. During this,a section of the crowd turned violent so light force had to be used to bring them under control.Crowd was dispersed.Police is deployed there.Situation is normal&peaceful: Mumbai police PRO https://t.co/Uiihf7EXEd
— ANI (@ANI) April 14, 2020
After repeated attempts to send them back failed, the cops resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the crowd at 5 pm, reports India Today.
Huge crowd of migrant workers in Bandra, Mumbai a short while ago demanding permission to go back to their home villages. Lathi charge too. #Lockdown2 pic.twitter.com/ZPHlCTCJlP
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) April 14, 2020
Hindustan Times quoted a labourer named Zahid Mistri saying,
“We are out of food and now the lockdown has been extended. How will we survive here in Mumbai? We came to know about a special train running for migrants, so we gathered.”
Another one named Farooq Shaikh added,
“I am from Malda in West Bengal. We heard the government was running a special train from Mumbai. So we packed our luggage to leave the city as we have lost our jobs.”
NDTV reports that they may have been misled by fake news circulating on the internet.
It is clarified that all Passenger train services are fully cancelled, across the nation, till 3rd May 2020 and there is no plan to run any special train to clear the passenger rush
All concerned may pl.take note of the same and help us in resisting any wrong news in this regard
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) April 14, 2020
The #MumbaiPolice on Wednesday arrested a man from Navi Mumbai for allegedly posting messages on #socialmedia which triggered a huge horde of migrants in #Bandra on Tuesday evening, officials said.#BandraStation #MumbaiLockdown pic.twitter.com/9vxtUGAclM
— IANS Tweets (@ians_india) April 15, 2020
The Hindu quoted senior police inspector Yogesh Gawde from Rabale police station saying,
“Mr. Vinay Dubey had instigated migrant workers to come out on the road and protest through a video that he posted on Facebook. We picked him up from his residence at sector 6 in Airoli where he stays with family. He claims to be a social worker.”
In total 3 FIRs have been filed by the police – against the crowd, Mr. Vinay Dubey and a news reporter who allegedly shared fake news of special trains for migrants.
Today what happened in Bandra was unfortunate. It might have happened because they thought that trains will start from 14th April and so they would be able to go back to their villages: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray https://t.co/35bJ1n5JQT
— ANI (@ANI) April 14, 2020
We hope that the government takes concrete steps to ease the plight of the underprivileged during this time of crisis.