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Covid-19: Migrant workers in Kerala violate lockdown, seek transport for home
The large number of migrant workers who caught the police unawares, threatened that they would start marching towards their states if authorities ignored their demand.
Police in Kerala’s Kottayam district resorted to mild baton charge to disperse a crowd of migrant workers who violated lockdown norms and gathered to demand transportation to travel to their native places Sunday forenoon.
Police said more than 3000 migrant workers were on the streets in Payippad village near Changanassery, about 150 km north of Thiruvananthapuram, violating the lockdown imposed to check the spread of coronavirus.
The large number of people number caught the police by surprise.
“We have no idea how such large numbers gathered in such a short time,” said a police officer who did not wish to be named.
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Though the government had arranged food and dwellings for them, the migrants said they were not getting proper food and accommodation and that they were worried over news emanating from other areas about coronavirus and wanted to go back to their villages. Police said a majority of them are from Bihar, Chattisgarh and Odisha.
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The workers threatened they would start marching towards their states if authorities ignored their demand.
Despite repeated pleas by the police to disperse, the workers stayed put and set up roadblock,s eventually prompting a lathi charge by the police.
“Since the lockdown we have been arranging food for them. But now they insist they should be sent back and pointed to the evacuation of migrants workers from Delhi by the Uttar Pradesh government. It seems some people have instigated them. That is not possible for us. We told them about our constraints” said Kottayam district collector P K Sudheer Babu.
The face-off lasted about two hours. The administration eventually managed to bring the situation under control and the workers were sent back to their camps after much persuasion.
