“It can take us about 10 days to reach home,” said one among the hundreds of migrant workers who crossed a river to reach their native villages miles away, adding another despairing visual to scores of moving images depicting the desperation of the country’s poorest during the nationwide lockdown.
Hundreds of migrants – some with bags on their heads and children on their shoulders- were seen walking through the river Yamuna in Haryana to reach their homes in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The river flows along the Uttar Pradesh-Haryana border on some stretches.
“We are left with no other option. What can we do? We don’t have our jobs anymore,” said a migrant from Bihar sitting on the bank and waiting for his turn to cross the river with the help of tyre-tubes.While some of the migrants entered the river from Yamunanagar district and reached Kairana town in Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli on Thursday night, others started their journey from Karnal district to reach their homes in Bihar via Uttar Pradesh.
The workers decided to cross the river as many inter-state borders have been sealed and movement without permission from authorities is not allowed, reported news agency PTI.
With the country under a lockdown since late March, tens of thousands of migrant workers have resorted to walking home on foot for hundreds of miles, with dozens dying on their journey from exhaustion or accidents.
The Supreme Court today dismissed a petition that asked that the centre be ordered to provide food and water to migrants on the move, saying, “it is impossible for this court to monitor who is walking and not walking.”
Leave a Reply