This story is from May 12, 2020

Endless caravan of misery as migrants trudge home

All along the 800km, Pune-to-Bhopal stretch of the Mumbai-Agra NH, thousands upon thousands of migrant workers, children in arms, stumbling along, are stretched out in unending lines. Almost every truck that passes by is a refuge on wheels. Exhausted people sleep on the roadside.
Covid-19 lockdown: Migrants trudge along highways or hitch rides on trucks as mass exodus continues
A family of migrants travels in a small truck on the Pune-Bhopal stretch of the Mumbai-Agra national highway on Monday
BHOPAL: A caravan of misery is winding its way down India’s highways as the exodus of migrant workers from its Covid-scarred cities and industrial townships head for home on foot, battered bikes, crammed into the backs of trucks, any which way they can.
All along the 800km, Pune-to-Bhopal stretch of the Mumbai-Agra NH, thousands upon thousands of migrant workers, children in arms, stumbling along, are stretched out in unending lines.
Almost every truck that passes by is a refuge on wheels. Exhausted people sleep on the roadside. Children cry in hunger. Mothers cast anguished glances at vehicles that won’t stop.
Pic 1

At MP’s Sendhwa around 4am on Sunday, the beam of a truck’s headlamps landed on a wailing child not more than four years old. He and his family were travelling in the back of the truck ahead – with pots and pans and whatever was left of their life in Pune.
In UP’s Lalitpur district, a 26-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl under a roadside tree in Balabheat village last Saturday. Along with a dozen other migrant workers, she had set out on a 500km trek from Dhar in MP back to her native village of Barkhariya.
On Monday, TOI came across at least four workers who had breached a containment zone in Pune and started trudging towards Satna in MP, more than 1,100km away, via NH-30. “Kya karein? Ab humara dimaag kaam karna band ho gaya aur hum aise hi latak gaye hai (What to do? My brain has stopped working and I am stranded),” 34-year-old Mahesh Shankar said.

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Ajay Chouhan, a native of Agra, sneaked out of Raviwar Peth, another Covid-19 hotspot. “Police told me I won’t get a pass; so I decided to walk,” he said. In the back of another truck spotted earlier near Malegaon, the passengers had built bunks, with separate groups occupying either deck. While sleeping, they held on to ropes lest they fall off the vehicle.
Every now and then, headlamps of passing vehicles would illuminate silhouettes sleeping on the roadside. The migrants lay in a tangled heap, their legs appearing to have crumpled in sheer exhaustion; few had even had the energy to spread out a gamchha on the stones and pebbles.
A handful chose the relative safety of petrol pumps or toll booths to curl up on the ground. “We have been walking for three days. God knows how much longer. I can’t even sleep as I am scared my little kid will crawl onto the highway. My husband and I take turns sleeping,” said Parvati Bai, headed for Agra.
Over 2 lakh migrant labourers cross Maharashtra-MP border in 24 hours
At places like Malegaon, Dhule and also Sendhwa, residents lined up the highway at daytime to hand food packets and water to passing migrant workers.
As of Sunday, more than 2 lakh migrant labourers had crossed the Maharashtra-MP border in 24 hours. Vinod Kumar of MP’s Morena wasn’t one of them. Not wanting to cram his wife and children — aged three years and six months — into the back of a truck or walk 1,300km, he used up most of his life’s savings to buy a second-hand motorcycle for Rs 10,000 in Pune. They set off in the early hours of Friday, along with 15 others, including his brother’s family.
After 100km, his second-hand buy gave up. He pushed it till Ahmednagar in the scorching heat, hoping to find a mechanic. His brother stayed back with him while the others went ahead. Their hungry children bawled while the duo searched frantically for a mechanic in the locked-down city. They found one, who asked for Rs 8,000 to fix it. Vinod pleaded that he had only Rs 5,000 of his savings left. The mechanic wouldn’t budge.
A local resident patched up the bike, and they resumed their journey on Saturday morning. The motorcycle sputtered and died a few kilometres later. TOI found him hauling his junked bike back towards Pune. Later on Sunday, he called to say that when he reached Pune, his landlord refused to let him in. “I don’t have money left to go back. No home to stay. I don’t know what to do,” he wept on the phone, pleading for help.
Officials at the Malegaon toll gate said 5,000 Mumbai autos had crossed on Saturday alone, most of them taking NH3 towards UP.
Policemen deployed on the highway allowed them to pass to avoid chaos. An SI on highway patrol said they are being let through as screening lakhs of migrant workers is not possible. “If we start stopping them to examine their health, there will be a huge mess. Let them go home,” he said.
(With inputs from Gitesh Shelke and Arindam Ghosh)
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