Even fifty days post the lockdown and promises of being taken to the safety of their homes, migrant workers are still awaiting for that promise to be executed on ground. Efficiencies by the government have cost many migrants their lives.
On Thursday, fourteen migrant labourers were killed and nearly 60 were injured in two road accidents while they were on the way to their homes in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the police said.
The Madhya Pradesh police said that in an early morning accident in Guna, around 180 kms from Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal, eight Uttar Pradesh-bound migrant workers were killed and nearly 55 injured when the truck they were travelling in, collided with a bus, The Tribune reported.
Superintendent of Police Tarun Nayak said that the accident took place on Thursday at around 3 Am when the truck carrying nearly 65 migrant labourers from Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh collided with a bus coming from the wrong side on the Guna bypass road. He added that prima facie, the carelessness of the bus driver caused the accident and that investigation in the matter was underway and a case had been registered against the bus driver.
The injured have been admitted to the Guna district hospital and are undergoing treatment there. The deceased were residents of Unnao and Raebareli districts of Uttar Pradesh, the police informed. Guna Collector S Vishwanathan said that the district administration was making arrangements to send the injured workers home safely after their recovery.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan condoled the deaths of the migrant workers and said that top officials were directed to ensure proper treatment of the injured.
Six killed, three injured in Uttar Pradesh
In a second accident, in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar on Wednesday, when six migrant workers walking to their homes in Bihar from Punjab, were killed and four others were hit by a roadways bus on the Delhi-Saharanpur Highway which was returning to Agra after dropping migrant labourers to their homes, officials said.
According to the police, the deceased were residents of the Gopalganj district and were walking back home from Punjab. Station House Officer Anil Kapervan said that medical reports confirmed that Rajbir, the roadways bus driver, was under the influence of alcohol when the incident took place and had been arrested.
The incident took place on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday between the Ghalauli check-post and Rohana toll plaza, about 20 kms from Muzaffarnagar, Senior Superintendent of Police Abhishek Yadav said.
The bodies of the six deceased were sent to their homes in Bihar in two ambulances escorted by a police van, after their postmortems, Additional District Magistrate Alok Kumar told PTI.
Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs. 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 each for the seriously injured.
These incidents have come only days after the 16 migrant labourers were mowed to death on the railway tracks by a goods train in Aurangabad, Maharashtra on May 8.
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