Migrant labourers stare at uncertainty
JOBS LOST DUE TO LOCKDOWN, HOUSES DESTROYED BY CYCLONE
Jamal Mondal (45), a migrant labourer who returned from Bengaluru to his hometown Gosaba in South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, on Monday, was happy to be reunited with his family, even though he had lost his job due to the nationwide lockdown. But his happiness was short-lived.
On Thursday morning, along with his four daughters and wife, Mondal was jostling outside a relief camp in the district for two loafs of bread and a tarpaulin sheet to spend the nights at a cyclone shelter, as his one-storey mud house was washed away by extremely severe cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’ on Wednesday night. “On Monday, when I reached home, I thought my sufferings were over. But I was wrong. The lockdown took away my job and the cyclone took away everything I was left with. I do not know what would I do next, where would I stay and how would I feed my family,” Mondal told a TV channel.
Ditto with hundreds of migrant labourers in South 24 Parganas who lost jobs due to the lockdown and are left with nothing due to the monstrous cyclone now. According to Jamir Ali (35), it was after the devastating Cyclone Aila in 2009 he had decided to go to other states in search of work to feed his family of seven. “After Aila, I had decided to go to Bengaluru in search of work. I worked there as a mason for 10 years, but due to the lockdown, lost my job and after an arduous journey of 15 days by foot, truck and bus, managed to reach home on Tuesday. I was hopeful that everything would be fine, but the worse was waiting to happen,” he said.
Ali’s house has been destroyed and since Wednesday night, there is no trace of his younger brother, who had gone out to tie down their boat near the embankment. “My brother left the house around 5 pm, saying he would be back within half-an-hour after tying down our fishing dinghy to one of the pillars on the embankment. The embankment is completely destroyed and there is no trace of him,” Ali said.