Probing questions greet villagers as they return home

VARANASI: Ramprasad Pal faced a volley of questions when he reached his native village Chakia Kasrawal in Mehnajpur area of Azamgarh on March 23 from Mumbai.

Locals asked him whether he and his two family members were screened by medical team at the railway station.

A few locals said he should have stayed back in Mumbai as a precautionary measure to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The locals calmed down only after he said his wife, daughters and he were found fit during thermal scanning at the Varanasi railway station.

“I was a wholesale supplier of vegetables in Mumbai. After the coronavirus outbreak, I decided to leave Mumbai for my village. I boarded Mahanagari Express on March 22 and reached Varanasi the next day. When we got off the train at the Cantt station, a team of medical experts examined us using a thermal scanner. They declared us fit,” Pal said.

Vijay Narayan Singh, an elderly socialist in the same village, said, “People are scared of the coronavirus. That is why when Pal and his family arrived around a week ago, many locals asked a number of questions.”

He said migrants reaching Azamgarh from different cities across the country were facing similar queries in other villages too.

Four people, including Surendra Yadav, faced similar queries from locals when they reached Sidhauna village under Lalganj tehsil in Azamgarh on Friday night.

Dissatisfied with the answers, the locals informed the administration.

A team led by the tehsildar visited them and served a notice on them, asking them to remain in quarantine for 14 days.

District magistrate Nagendra Prasad Singh said, “An awareness drive is being carried out in villages. We tell people that social distancing means physical distance not emotional distance.”