Covid-19 lockdown: Truck crushes 4 labourers returning home near Mumbai

A group of seven labourers were going to their villages in Rajasthan on foot when the Gujarat police turned them away Friday night at Bhilad (Gujarat-Maharashtra border) and they were returning to their shanties in Vasai.

Four labourers were killed on the spot while three others were seriously injured when a truck ploughed into them at Virar on the Mumbai Ahmedabad Highway around 3 am Saturday, police said.

The scene at a hospital in Virar where three injured were admitted.(HT PHOTO)

The Virar police have seized the truck but the driver is absconding, said Assistant Police Inspector Ranjitsinh Pardeshi of Mandvi police check post.

A group of seven labourers were going to their villages in Rajasthan on foot when the Gujarat police turned them away Friday night at Bhilad (Gujarat-Maharashtra border) and they were returning to their shanties in Vasai.

Two of the dead have been identified as Kalpesh Joshi (32), and Mayank Bhatt (34) while the rest are yet to be identified. Of the three admitted to hospital, the condition of one is serious. The police officer said.

The seven were among thousands of daily wage labourers rendered jobless by the 21-day lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus in the country.

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had turned off street lights on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway due to traffic restrictions and the area where the accident took place was in total darkness, the official.

For many labourers from Gujarat and Rajasthan who work as masons at construction sites, there is no work now and scores of them have been forced to walk back to their villages in the absence of any transport due to the lockdown.

The lockdown has sparked migrations from major metros as workers and daily wage earners headed home in different states, mostly on foot.

Maharashtra continues to have the highest number of Covid-19 infected people at 159 while the total number of infections in the country has crossed 800.