E-Paper
Man walks 200km to Agra, dies of heart attack on way to MP village
A 38-year-old man who set out on foot from Delhi to his home in Morena in Madhya Pradesh collapsed and died on Saturday morning after walking nearly 200kms in nearly
A 38-year-old man who set out on foot from Delhi to his home in Morena in Madhya Pradesh collapsed and died on Saturday morning after walking nearly 200kms in nearly three days, according to police officials who said the cause of death was a heart attack possibly brought on by the exertion.
The death is the first recorded fatality among the tens of thousands – some estimates put the numbers into six digits – of migrant workers walking back to their villages for food and shelter after losing work in metropolitan cities during the three-week lockdown put in place to stem the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The man was identified as Ranveer Singh, who delivered food orders for a restaurant in south Delhi’s Tughlakabad, said Agra district police chief Babloo Kumar. “Singh and two others from Delhi were walking to Morena. On reaching Agra on Saturday morning, he complained of chest pain and collapsed,” the senior police officer said.
The village they were heading to was another 100km from where Singh died.
An autopsy later identified the cause of death as myocardial infarction – the medical term for a heart attack.
“The heart attack was probably caused because of exertion in walking to Agra from Delhi. The post-mortem was conducted on Saturday and body was handed over to family members who turned up from the village,” said Arvind Kumar, the Station House Officer of Sikandra police station.
The incident brings into focus the unforeseen problems now emerging after the government took the drastic step to shut down most of the country, leaving only a few exceptions meant to keep essential services and utilities running.
Food delivery at restaurants have been covered by the list of exceptions but most establishments such as the one Singh worked at have not been functioning since availability of raw material and staff has been constrained due to the strict rules.
