Going home in a packed truck, 3 migrant workers dead hours later
NEW DELHI/KANPUR: Three migrant labourers and an infant girl were killed, while 46 others suffered injuries in two road accidents when they were returning home in Uttar Pradesh from other states during the lockdown, officials said on Wednesday.
A truck carrying a group of 54 migrant labourers and their families from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh rammed into a stationary truck near Lalpur police post on Kanpur-jhansi highway, killing three people and injuring 43 others.
Superintendent of Police (Kanpur Dehat) Anurag Vats said: “The deceased persons have been identified as Rohit (25), Hiraman (50) and Sumaiyya (2), all residents of Balrampur.”
The injured have been admitted to the district hospital, he said, adding that eight of them are critical and have been referred to Lala Lajpat Rai (LLR) Hospital, Kanpur.
In Chitrakoot, a migrant labourer returning home in Uttar Pradesh from Chhattisgarh on a bicycle was killed after being hit by a truck, the police said. Mohan (44), a resident of Saharanpur, was returning home along with three others on Tuesday evening when the accident took place, they said.
The labourers had stopped on the roadside near Kalchiha village in Chitrakoot to take rest when they were hit by the speeding truck, the police said.
All four were injured in the accident and taken to a community health centre in Mau village, where
Mohan died.
Meanwhile, an elderly woman was found dead inside a Shramik Special train that arrived in UP’S Banda on Wednesday from Gujarat’s Vadodara, but no decision has been taken yet on sending her sample for testing COVID-19, officials said.
Banda Railway Station Manager SK Kushwaha said the 75-year-old woman belonged to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and was in the train that reached here around 6 am.
“As many as 1,908 migrant labourers arrived on the special train from Vadodara. Once all the passengers had deboarded, the entire train was searched, and the body was found. The Banda district administration has taken the body to a mortuary,” he said.