Nearly 1000 jobless migrant workers gathered outside a railway station in Mumbai’s Bandra on Tuesday, hours after Prime Minister extended the lockdown to May 3 to check the spread of the coronavirus infections, demanding for trains to take them home.
Mumbai Police baton-charged the protesting migrant workers—mostly from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal—who assembled near the Bandra railway station around 3pm and dispersed them two hours later.
Bandra Police filed a first information report (FIR) against 700 unidentified persons and the Navi Mumbai Police detained an Airoli resident for allegedly uploading a video on social media which officers said may have helped spread the rumours.
“The man has been handed over to Bandra Police. They will carry out further investigation; we can’t reveal anything,” said Yogesh Gawde, senior inspector at Rabale police station.
Who said what?
Labourers
“I am from Malda in West Bengal. We heard the government was running a special train from Mumbai. So we packed our luggage to leave the city as we have lost our jobs,” Farooq Shaikh, a daily-wage worker who stays at Behrampada in Bandra (East), said.
“We are out of food and now the lockdown has been extended. How will we survive here in Mumbai? We came to know about a special train running for migrants, so we gathered,” Zahid Mistri, also from Malda and who lives in Bandra, said.
“We have spent our savings during the first phase of the lockdown. We have nothing to eat now, we just want to go back at our native place, the government should make arrangements for us,” Asadullah Sheikh, who hails from Malda in West Bengal, said.
“I am in Mumbai for the last many years but have never seen such a situation. The government should start trains to shift us from here to our native place,” Abdul Kayyun, another labourer, said.
Police and railways officials
Vijayalaxmi Hiremath, the senior police inspector at Bandra police station, said they received information about people gathered outside Bandra railway station around 3.30pm. A team of police officers rushed to the spot and found close to a 1000 people there.
Additional reinforcement was called from the reserved police force zonal office and from the neighbouring police stations of Khar and Santacruz.
“We tried to make them understand and asked them to return to their houses, but the crowd was not in a mood to listen,” said Hiremath.
“The workers were protesting against the extension of the lockdown, saying they do not have access to food and other essentials,” a western railway (WR) official, who did not want to be named, said.
Political to and fro
The Bandra incident snowballed into a political blame game between the ruling and opposition parties in Maharashtra as state tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray took a swipe at the central government.
“The current situation at Bandra Station, now dispersed or even the rioting in Surat is a result of the Union Government not being able to take a call on arranging a way back home for migrant labour. They don’t want food or shelter, they want to go back home.” Aaditya Thackeray tweeted.
He also reiterated the state government’s demand to operate trains for 24 hours for migrant labourers.
“Right from the day the trains have been shut down, the State had requested trains to run for 24 hours more so that migrant labour could go back home. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray raised this issue in the PM- CM video conference as well requesting a roadmap for migrant labour to reach home,” he said.
After Aaditya Thackeray’s outburst, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) state unit called the incident a failure of the state.
Ex-MP Kirit Somaiya asked the Uddhav Thackeray government to explain how a thousand people gathered at Bandra(West) near the station despite prohibitory orders. Somaiya asked the chief minister to explain what the intelligence agencies were doing and how a large number of people could gather when the police did not allow more than four people in one place.