Thousands of migrant workers from Bengal, Bihar and Chhattisgarh have gathered at Kottayam, Kerala, wanting to go back home amidst coronavirus outbreak.
Thousands of migrant workers gather in a town in Kottayam in Kerala. Want to return to home states of Bengal, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. Say they haven’t eaten for 2-3 days pic.twitter.com/NLIYMBSKBf
— Padmaja joshi (@PadmajaJoshi) March 29, 2020
As per journalist Padmaja Joshi, the migrant workers there say that they haven’t eaten since past 2-3 days. Kerala has reported second highest number of COVID-19 positive people (174), second only after Maharashtra (183). It is the second state after Delhi where migrant workers have gathered in large numbers after announcement of nationwide lockdown.
As per reports, the migrant workers in Kerala gathered after they saw buses were arranged for migrant workers by Delhi government in Delhi which let off the migrants at border and left them on their own. Most of these workers then eventually started walking towards their villages, hundreds of kilometers away. Now as per reports, they have also decided to walk all the way from Kerala to their home towns back in North India.
Last week, migrant workers in Kerala were forced to walk till Karnataka border in Kodagu where they were later sheltered in quarantine.
