People’s participation helps Amreli cops tackle migrant exodus

Rajkot: While ensuring there is total lockdown, Amreli police too encountered a peculiar problem - influx of migrant labourers in hordes.
This problem was multifaceted, said Amreli superintendent of police (SP), Nirlipt Rai, while talking to TOI on Monday. “To convince the illiterate people to stay put or make them understand the severity of the law was a huge task,” he said.
At the same time, cops had to handle them very sensitively so as not to cause distress or agitation.
Rai said the migrating population was more than 10,000 people comprising labourers and daily wage earners both from Amreli and neighbouring districts. While many were from Dahod or Chhota Udepur areas, working as farm labourers, many were also construction labourers or small-time vendors who were going back to their native places in Rajasthan or in Madhya Pradesh.
“They somehow wanted to reach home and believed in the safety of their numbers, which was our biggest challenge,” he said.
As the Rabi season is on currently, the police called upon the farmers to keep their labourers in their own farms and ensure that they get work as well food there. “We aggregated the migrants into two categories - farm labourers and daily wagers. While we could settle a good number of farm labourers in their own places of work by convincing the owners, many daily wagers had to be shifted to the rehabilitation camps,” said Rai.
On the first day of the lockdown, Rai also put up posts on his Facebook and Twitter handle asking people to donate food items for the migrants and added two numbers where people could deposit whatever they wished to be centrally distributed.
Naming this endeavour as ‘Jan bhagidari (people’s participation)’, Rai said he was overwhelmed by the support from donors who gave wheat, pulses, rice, jaggery and other food items.
“So far, we have distributed 2,000 such grocery kits comprising flour, rice, pulses, oil and biscuits among the labourers which will sustain a family for minimum 21 days during the lockdown,” he said.
Amreli rehabilitation centres are home to around 125 labourers at present who are being looked after by the district administration. Amid the many voluntary contributions, many officials of Amreli district traffic branch too have contributed a day’s salary to the noble cause.
Amreli police have also started serving cooked food to old, infirm beggars and recently, they also ensured blood transfusion for the thalassemia patients.