Gravity of situation yet to dawn upon most evacuees
NEWDELHI: Their faces covered, a group of men with their belongings on trolleys and in sacks, walked towards a green DTC bus parked outside the Nizamuddin police station.
They left their bags in the front and silently occupied one seat after the other. They hardly spoke to each other.
As they waited, another group did what they had done just minutes ago-- they evacuated from a five-storey white building, called Markaz, submitted to a thermal screening, gave their contact details and walked towards the bus.
“I had arrived from Muzaffarnagar 25 days ago to do social service. Now, I feel like as if I committed a crime,” said one of the men in the bus — the gravity of their collective act still not having dawned on him.
He wanted water as the temperature rose in the bus, but none of his co-passengers had any.
The men were part of the around 1,000 pilgrims and guests hiding in the Markaz after the countrywide lockdown was announced on March 24 to prevent the spread of Covid-19. When officials tracked the travel history of at least eight persons who died in different parts of the country, it led them to this building. Since then, 24 people from the area were found positive for the virus and around 441 others showed symptoms. Nizamuddin had become a hot spot of the virus in the city.
On Tuesday, the roads leading to the Markaz were sealed and only government officials were allowed.
Sanitation workers roped in to spray disinfectants on the gates and windows in the Nizamuddin neighbourhoods received unusual requests -from health officials and journalists to spray on their clothes and shoes, and the police requested them to spray on their cars and motorcycles.
In the adjoining lanes, civil defence volunteers walked around with a list of residents who were suspected of having come in contact with the Markaz residents. But these volunteers said it was a futile task. “We are looking at people who may have visited the Markaz, but the occupants themselves had been to several places,” said Suraj Kumar, one of the volunteers.
People in the area concurred. Afzal Khan, a man who works at a roadside food stall and sleeps in a park near the Markaz, said, “Many of them would take a walk in the park and play with our children. They would then walk to the nearby Humayun’s Tomb.”
Other residents in the adjoining neighbourhoods said that the occupants would roam around in their streets. “Our delivery boys had been delivering food at the Markaz until Friday. They would approach the gates, collect the cash, hand over the food and leave,” said Zuhaib, owner of a Biryani restaurant nearby.
But the evacuees insisted that they weren’t to blame.