States move to quarantine returnees, stop migration

One in Kerala, 93 in Gujarat held for defying curbs; officials to quarantine workers for 14 days

NEW DELHI: The movement of migrant workers to their homes , mostly in the hinterland, continued on Monday even as police in states such as Kerala and Gujarat said they arrested scores of them for defying the three-week countrywide lockdown.

The Centre has asked states to seal borders, provide migrant workers shelter and food, and set up quarantine centres to prevent their further movement until the lockdown ends. The lockdown was imposed last week to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. It left millions of migrant workers jobless, and many defied the restrictions imposed on movement as they tried to return home on foot in the absence of any public transport.

In Kerala’s Kottayam, a worker from West Bengal was arrested for instigating violence and another 200 for being part of a mob a day after a large number of workers assembled in Payipadu in violation of the lockdown and demanded that they be sent back home. “Cases have been registered against some identified people for unlawful assembly violating the lockdown orders issued by the government as part of measures taken by the government to prevent the spread of the virus,” said district police chief, G Jaidev.

The Gujarat police on Monday arrested 93 migrant workers in Surat for defying the lockdown and attacking police. Around 500 migrant labourers took to the streets on Sunday, demanding transport facilities be provided to them to return to their villages mostly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

“When police tried to convince them to remain indoors, they threw stones... We arrested 93 workers who organised the protest,” said Surat’s deputy police commissioner, Vidhi Chaudhari.

As the states struggled to cope with a sea of migrant workers, images shared on social media showed workers hiding themselves in trucks, lorries and pick-up vans and travelling in inhuman conditions to reach their destinations. HT cannot confirm the veracity of these images.

In Bihar’s Nawada district, 25 vehicles were caught carrying people, said police superintendent Hariprasath S. Some of the workers were caught and sent to quarantine centres while others managed to escape.

There were reports of panchayat heads preventing people from entering villages and putting them in government-run quarantine centres.

A video doing the rounds, showed officials in UP’s Bareilly spraying a mixture of sodium hypochlorite (liquid bleach) and water on migrant workers. Officials said this was done according to directions of the state government. Bareilly district magistrate Nitish Kumar said on Monday that he will look into allegations that migrant workers were sprayed with the chemical and said the sanitisation was done by the fire department personnel. Sodium hyphochlorite is used to keep swimming pools clean, but in low concentrations. Experts said that concentrations used for disinfecting surfaces could be harmful to humans. As the video circulated, other videos, including one showing a similar disinfecting process undertaken by the Kerala police emerged. It wasn’t clear which chemical was used in Kerala.

The continuing movement of migrants has prompted authorities in states such as West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Bihar to issue directions for keeping all those returning home under mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Top officials across states have stepped in to handle the situation with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee issuing directions against forcing migrant workers to do any paperwork for relief. Her UP counterpart, Yogi Adityanath, on Monday visited makeshift shelter homes for migrant workers in Noida and Ghaziabad and directed officials to ensure that they get food.

In Odisha, chief minister Naveen Pathnaik has asked officials to provide health care facilities to all migrant workers. The workers would get 12 kg rice and ~500 cash during the lockdown period apart from cooked meals if needed, Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao announced.

Odisha, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have designated government schools closed since midMarch in view of the pandemic as quarantine centres for migrant workers returning home.

In Andhra Pradesh, officials said migrant workers were being accommodated in marriage halls and hotels, which have been converted into isolation centres.

Kerala has been housing migrant labourers in government-run facilities such as guest houses and stadia. Goa and Maharashtra have taken similar measures.

According to estimates from various state governments, there are over a million migrant workers either on roads or in makeshift quarantine facilities. Around 1 lakh people from Odisha have been stranded in different parts of the country, state chief secretary Asit Tripathy said. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said about 80,000 migrant workers were at shelter homes in his state.

Officials said about one lakh workers in Bihar and 73,000 in Jharkhand are in governmentmonitored quarantine facilities, and many more on roads in different states. The Telangana government has identified 3.35 lakh migrant workers held at state borders due to the lockdown. Andhra Pradesh has estimated it has 50,000 such workers.

In Bihar, poll strategist and politician Prashant Kishor demanded chief minister Nitish Kumar’s resignation saying the government has failed to mitigate the hardship of people arriving in the state.

“This arrangement of Nitish Kumar for social distancing and quarantine of the poor people reaching Bihar from many parts of the country after facing heavy difficulties is heart-rending. Nitish must quit,” Kishor said in a tweet, tagging a clip of a group of people locked inside a facility with one of them crying while sharing his troubles.

The Janata Dal (United) did not response to Kishor’s charge.

In West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) started distributing relief to migrant workers, claiming the ruling Trinamool Congress has failed to provide them succour. The government rejected the BJP’s claims and said migrant labourers have been asked to stay in home quarantine and food is being delivered to them.

ACCORDING TO DATA FROM VARIOUS STATE GOVERNMENTS, THERE ARE OVER A MILLION MIGRANT WORKERS EITHER ON ROADS OR IN QUARANTINE FACILITIES