As extreme heat, hunger and dehydration add to the woes of returning migrant workers, nine passengers have been found dead in ‘Shramik Special’ trains since Monday and they included a woman whose toddler son was seen trying to wake her up in a heart wrenching scene at a railway platform in Bihar.
While a few deaths on board the non-air conditioned trains were also reported earlier after they were launched on May 1 to ferry migrant labourers to their home states, the Railways on Wednesday said most of the deceased had pre-existing health conditions.
The nine deaths on different trains heading to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar occurred since Monday but were reported by the Railways and civil authorities in the two states on Wednesday.
A video about the toddler son tweeted by Sanjay Yadav, an aide to RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and which has gone viral, shows the child walking unsteadily up to his mother’s body, tugging at the blanket placed over her, and when failing to wake her up, covering his own head with it.
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