But for sympathetic authorities on either side of the inter-State border that Adilabad district shares with Yavatmal district of Maharashtra on the bridge on Penganga river on NH 44, the scene would have resembled a conflict zone as groups of migrant workers and others made desperate efforts to cross the dividing line during the last two days in the manner that refugees do.
The steady stream of hundreds of workers, mostly ‘fleeing’ the lockdown from Hyderabad on foot carrying rations and other bare essentials as head loads to destinations as far as Kanpur and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, among others, even took to sidetracking and crossing the river when stopped by the police on the bridge.
People like Dileep Uttam, Veerender Sonkar and Sarvan Sonkar from Movaiyya in Fatehpur district of UP, who sold ice-cream in Ghatkesar, had managed to partly walk and partly hitch a ride offered by sympathetic lorry drivers, to cover the 320 km to reach the border on March 30, only to be told that they would not be allowed into Maharashtra. They waited for sometime and joined another group of migrant workers from Hyderabad which sidetracked the NH and crossed the river.
Some of the workers were not lucky in so far as food was concerned as they missed the groups of do-gooders who supplied meals at regular intervals all along the road. Ram Bilas Kushwaha and his group of 14 got to eat only once during the 24-hour that the members were on road before they reached the border.
Like most of the migrants on the road Prem Niyogi, a skilled floorer from Madhya Pradesh, was on the edge of despair. “I fled as the contractor did not pay up my wages for the last week and forced us to go away to our native places,” he revealed, summing up for a majority of the fleeing people.
“The Telangana government should seek cooperation from other State governments to where the workers belong so that the latter can at least reassure them with regard to food and shelter,” opined a police officer. “The workers should be assured that the lockdown is going to end sooner than later and there will be plenty of work in the coming days,” he added.
