Migrant workers are not welcome even in their homes

It is a double whammy for the thousands of migrant workers, who have been fleeing industrial towns in Gujarat, Mumbai, Noida and Haryana, and following the lockdown, arriving in large numbers at their native villages across Uttar Pradesh.

Forced to walk hundreds of miles without food or water, the exhausted and worn out migrant workers are being looked at with suspicion and in many cases, denied entry into the villages by the residents, who suspected that they (workers) might spread the coronavirus infection.

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According to the reports, the residents at many villages have put up 'No Entry' boards on the roads leading to their villages and even recruited guards for round-the-clock vigil.

In UP's Sambhal district, about 450 kilometres from here, a youth, who worked in Delhi and had returned home on Friday, was assaulted by the villagers suspecting him to be infected with coronavirus, police sources here said.

Similarly, in many villages in Varanasi, Sonebhadra, Ballia, Azamgarh and Jaunpur districts, the residents have put up boards stating that no one, even those, who hailed from the villages but worked outside, would be allowed till April 14, the day the lockdown was scheduled to end.

At many places the residents have put up barricades also to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the village, reports said.

At some places, the residents allowed the migrant workers to enter only after they were examined at the local primary health centres and after assurance from the doctors that they did not have the infection. Even then, the residents are making sure that all of them remained in-home quarantine for at least 14 days.

In some cases, the police had to intervene to enable the workers to enter their villages. ''Awareness is good but no one has the right to deny entry to the workers in their own village,'' said a police official here.