‘It’s heartbreaking to talk to families’

Actor Sonu Sood’s untiring efforts to send migrants back to their homes during the Covid-19 crisis has inspired many. While he ensured that the people he sent back through flights, trains or buses reached safely, those who couldn’t avail his help were walking back. This led to some getting injured, falling ill or even dying.

Now, the 46-year-old has taken the responsibility of helping almost 400 families of migrants who had to suffer. Sood tells us, “All these people were walking back, and things happened on the highway. I realised it’s just the beginning, as millions are walking home. Imagine the kind of risk. So, I got in touch with them and sent around 90,000 people home,” he says, adding meanwhile, accidents were still happening and he “got in touch with government officials from Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and realised that 80 people had died inside Shramik trains”.

That’s when Sood, and his friend Neeti Goel decided to connect with the families of the deceased to get their details. What made things difficult was their family members, in some cases, didn’t have phones.

“So,with the help of their nearest police station, we got in touch with their villages’ pradhan, sarpanch, and neighbours. The police helped us a lot. When you speak to the families, they start crying, it’s heartbreaking to listen to them. You can’t say much, but want to do your bit,” says Sood.

Considering migrants relied on daily wages for a living and most of them are unemployed now, the actor has been in the process of supporting them for the last two months.

He tells us, “We took their account numbers which were still operating. We helped them financially, and then someone had different needs like their kids’ education, some wanted to build a house, do farming, etc., so we helped them, too.”