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Covid-19 lockdown: Motorists argue, workers begin a long back home at Faridabad border
Policemen on duty also told motorists that they had nearly 12 hours to cross the border after the lockdown was announced on Sunday evening.
Hundreds of motorists argued and pleaded with policemen at the borders of Delhi and Faribabad on Monday even as scores of workers walked several kilometers, braving the barriers, in a desperate bid to reach home in the wake of an unprecedented lockdown prompted by the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The police mostly turned deaf ears to the pleadings, and stuck to the guidelines. Some relented, occasionally, allowing a few motorists drive past the checkpoints. And at times, they issued fake threats of challans to dissuade a few while using portable loudspeakers to warn the others from getting into an argument.
“Please, no arguments,” a policeman repeatedly told a man on a car on the Faridabad side who wanted to return to his home in Dwarka. “My children and wife are alone at home. I had visited Faridabad last night to drop some relatives to their home,” Santosh Pathak, who works for a telecommunication company, told the policeman.
He produced his car’s registration certificate in a bid to convince the police that he was a resident of Delhi, but the police refused to see his documents.
Policemen on duty also told motorists that they had nearly 12 hours to cross the border after the lockdown was announced on Sunday evening.
The Delhi Police commissioner, SN Srivasatava, eatlier said residents of the city would be allowed to come in if they were stuck in the bordering areas.
The police, however, did allow people who produced identity proof to back their claims that they provided essential services -- be it working at hospitals or for the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). But they did attempt to stop motorists who produced hospital slips to say that they were visiting hospitals.
Motorists on both sides were stopped twice -- once by the police of the city they were coming from and then by the police of the city they were entering. The motorists who passed the first checkpoint, found themselves stuck in a jam at the next.
But the worst affected were factory workers on both sides. Many of them said they knew only of the janata curfew (on Sunday, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi), and not about the lockdown.
“My factory owner made me work till last night. Today he told me I had to leave,” said Jawed Khan, who works in a perfume unit in Faridabad. He walked with a bag on his back for several kilometers towards the Delhi border. “I hope to find a bus in Delhi,” said Khan who lives in Okhla.
Workers walked with strangers to keep them company even as they frantically waved at passing vehicles in the hope of getting a ride.
Bhuvan Singh, who is in a field job in Govindpuri, said he got a bus till the Badarpur border, but plans to walk all the way to his home in Palwal. “If I keep walking, I’ll reach my home by today or tomorrow,” he said about his 40-kilometre walk plan.
Singh said he didn’t know of the lockdown until Monday morning. “I have a basic phone and keep to myself,” he said, when asked why he wasn’t aware of the lockdown.
The police at the borders allowed the workers to walk past them and cross over.
