Coronavirus update| The long walk home: Lockdown, fear of Covid-19 spark exodus from Delhi

Covid-19: Left unemployed and homeless—tens of thousands of migrant workers converged at Anand Vihar on Saturday in the hope of boarding buses back home from across the border in Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh.

The road between Delhi’s Anand Vihar bus terminal and Uttar Pradesh’s Kaushambi terminal was possibly the most crowded place in Delhi on Saturday—at a time when the country is under a nationwide lockdown and observing social distancing.

A huge rush of migrant workers who had been marching on foot to their homes at Delhi’s Anand Vihar Bus Terminal on day 4 of the nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus. (Raj K Raj/HT PHOTO)

The number of people gathered on the road was over a lakh, government officials on the ground said.

They stood in a queue—one that stretched as far as the eye could see—jostling for space and pushing the persons in front to be able to board a bus back home from Kaushambi terminal.

“The queue is easily over 2km-long. it stretches between two states—Delhi and Uttar Pradesh,” a health worker, who was on the ground scanning people to check for fever, said.

Left unemployed and homeless—tens of thousands of migrant workers converged at Anand Vihar on Saturday in the hope of boarding buses back home from across the border in Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh government had pressed around 500 buses into service to drop migrant workers back to their hometowns and villages in UP.

Carrying just a few sets of clothes in their backpacks and leftover cash; covering their mouths with handkerchiefs, they walked on roads with their families and friends to join the 2km-long queue for the bus at the Delhi-UP border.

Until last week, they lived in factories or shops where they worked. However, all of them had been shut in the wake of the 21-day nationwide lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday evening as one of the measures to control the spread of the Sars-Cov-2 virus.

Many of their employers asked them to return home while others felt they had a better chance of surviving the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), back home.

Most of them worked at cell phone accessories factories of Karol Bagh, tailoring units in Nangloi, electrical fitting factories of Narela or jeans dyeing units of northeast Delhi, and had paid large amounts of money to drivers of auto-rickshaws, ambulances, cycle-rickshaws and even carts to reach Anand Vihar.

They walked hurriedly, refusing to stop for even for water, fearing that they would be left behind. When they did reach Anand Vihar, most of them didn’t know which queue to join and when their efforts would yield a bus ride.

Among the sea of people in the crowd was Nabeela Begum, a homemaker, from Bihar’s Gopalganj. She said, “I have no idea how long it is going to take to get a bus. I don’t know where the buses are headed. But once I am somewhere in the middle of Uttar Pradesh, I will feel better about being closer to home.”

“I need to arrange drinking water, but I am afraid I’ll lose my spot in the queue,” Rajesh Kumar, a daily wage labourer, said.

The people queued under the hot Delhi sun on Saturday, some of them with luggage on their heads and women with children in their arms. When some of them broke away from the queues, they were pushed back by the civil defence volunteers.

“It is madness here. No one has any idea how many may have been infected today. But we still have a job, unlike these helpless people. I haven’t told my family that I am among this sea of people,” one of the volunteers said.

And when those at the front of the queues did manage to cross the last point manned by the police, they underwent temperature checks by health workers who stood at a safe distance. The health workers said that people with high temperatures would be kept out of the queue.

“But how many have you taken to the hospital today?” HT asked the health worker. He smiled and then said, “We ask those with high temperature to stay in the shade and come back again for a test.”

During the day, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the people to “stay back”, assuring them of shelter and regular meals, even as he said that such an exodus potentially increases the risk of spread.

Despite his appeal, the numbers continued to swell. From different parts of the city, groups of people continued to walk to the border, relying on the generosity of some good Samaritans who lined up along the roads to offer them food and water.

Radha Yadav, 43, who worked at a factory in Nangloi, was among the many walking towards the border. He said he had heard the government’s appeal but would continue to walk. “I don’t have a job or a home here. If I have to die, I’d rather die in my village,” he said.