Family of 10 try to get to Rajasthan in milk tanker

MUMBAI: Ten members of a family, including three women and a child, were found hiding inside an empty milk tanker that was intercepted at Talasari in Palghar district while on its way to their village in Rajasthan on Saturday.
The milk tanker had started from Dombivli, where the family resides, and was on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Delhi national highway.
The driver, Ganeshsingh Rajput (21), was arrested and the family asked to go back to Dombivli.Besides the family and Rajput, the truck also had a cleaner.
Around noon, when the tanker reached Talasari, which is close to the border, the police stopped the vehicle for checking as the border was closed for regular traffic amid the national lockdown to combat Covid-19. The driver said he was transporting milk, an essential commodity that is allowed to be taken past the border, but he could not produce the documentation for it.
Police inspector Ajay Vasave said that one of the overhead lids of the tanker was open and that added to the sense of something being wrong. Five policemen climbed atop the tanker and were shocked to find the men and women inside the milk tank.
As they were made to alight from the tanker, the women wailed and pleaded with the policemen to allow them to go to their village in Gogunda, Udaipur. One of them had a boy in her arms. They told the police that they were left with no work and feared catching the coronavirus. The driver, who is from their village, is believed to have agreed to take them there for a fee.
Since the lockdown left many migrant labourers stranded without money or shelter, thousands of them have been walking on the highway to reach their homes across state borders. Some hide in trucks to escape detection but are sent back when intercepted, a measure to check the possible spread of coronavirus.