With belongings, migrants go to railway station daily hoping to reach home

With utensils packed in a bucket, besides other belongings, 42-year-old Lal Babu’s family walks from Manesar to Gurgaon railway station everyday in hope of getting their chance to travel back to Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district.

Babu says his family of five got their registration done for Shramik Special Trains from a volunteer before they crossed over from Bhiwadi, where they were working on a construction site. They however, don’t have the number or any document now.

“Three weeks back, I asked for help from a boy who was volunteering at a place where food was being distributed in Bhiwadi. However, all of that has stopped now, it was in initial days of lockdown. He had said our registration is done and we will be able to get a train from Gurgaon. We are camping in nearby Manesar now under a flyover as cops in Gurgaon wont let us spend time there,” Lal Babu told PTI.

They walk over 20 kms to the railway station with their belongings everyday as they cannot afford to leave them behind in case the family manages to board a train to their hometown.

Lal Babu is among several other migrants, who have no idea about their registrations and are clueless about when they will get a chance to go back home.

“We walk to the station daily in hope they would let us go. I ask at the station every day that if my name has come up in the list and they ask us to go back and not come there. They say government is doing so much but hum to ab bhi yahi hain (we are still here),” he said.

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Accompanying Lal Babu’s family of five, is Bharat Kumar, who used to work as a labourer in Sohna.

“My contractor did not pay my balance and asked me to vacate the room too. My wife and son are waiting for me in Bihar but I don’t have means to go. My son told me on phone that they saw in the news that everybody is walking back home and why dont I come too. I told him that I am too far and wont be able to survive that long a walk,” he said.

Two kids with their face covered with cloth are waiting outside the railway station entry, where their parents have gone to find out about the train.

“My father has gone inside. I am taking care of our utensils and bag till he returns. We will go in train then,” 5-year-old Krish said.

Atari Devi, his mother, said, “There is no hope that we will be coming back and it will be difficult for us to buy all utensils again so I have packed them all to go back. There are several trains which are going but not our train. We have to go to some other area and wait because here police will not allow to stay”.

As per the official data, over 10,000 migrants have left for their hometown since last week through Shramik Special trains and roadways buses.

“The schedule for these trains has not been made public and only workers selected by authorities are being allowed entry inside the station premises after proper screening. Arrangements have been made at Tau Devi Lal stadium for these migrants and no one should come directly to the station,” a representative at the railway station said, who refused to be identified.

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The migrants, however, say it is a long wait to get entry to the stadium as there are already enough people inside.

“We went to the stadium but could not go inside as the guard told us there is no space inside for more people and they don’t allow us to gather outside the stadium,” Imarti Devi said.

When the state governments are struck in a political turmoil, scores of migrants still await to find a way back home. Among them is Kuldeep Kumar, a migrant labourer, who after waiting for 14 hours in the summer heat with his 10-month-old child was finally able to get on a bus to his home town in Rae Bareli on Monday evening.

“I just want Divyanshi, my daughter, to be safe,” he says pointing to the infant in his wife Aarti’s lap.

A day after the local administration announced that buses will leave for Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of migrant workers like Kumar and their families gathered at a ground in Kundli Industrial Area.

Many of them worked in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) located in the area, which now looks like a ghost town with trucks parked outside manufacturing units that are shut due to the coronavirus lockdown.

With temperatures crossing over 40 degrees Celsius, many were tired and dehydrated as they waited with bleary eyes for their buses to take them home.

The local administration tried to provide food and water, but it was not enough to sustain the people gathered there. There was no toilet facility either, making it difficult for women and elderly.

The lines were segregated district-wise, but migrant workers and their family members, including the elderly, were standing in close proximity, despite fears of spread of the infection. The gamchas acted as masks and protection from heat.

For them, the bigger fear was staying back as there was no money left, many mouths to feed and rents to pay.

“Back home, at least I don’t have to bother about paying rent,” said Kumar. Rajput Singh (35) was going back home to his village in Uttar Pradesh with three children and wife Sunita (30).

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“It is difficult to sustain here now. We will try to come back when the lockdown ends,” Singh said, covering his head with a gamcha. His children including three-year-old Nitin were covered with a thin layer of cloth to protect them from the scorching heat.

Asha Devi (40) and Dilip Gupta (45) had paid rent to their landlord in Sersa village on the Delhi-Haryana border on Sunday after the village sarpanch announced that buses will take them to their home state the next morning.

The couple left the house at 4 AM and walked 3 kilometers to reach a crossing at the Kundli Industrial estate adjoining the Delhi border. But more than 12 hours after they left home, there was no sight of the bus that would take their hometown in Kushi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh.

Asha Devi had come to Sersa just before the lockdown so that she could get herself treated for chest pain. But for nearly two months her woes have only increased after her husband Gupta, a daily wager, lost his job.

“We boarded a bus, travelled a few kilometers and then we were dropped at the Kundli bus stop,” she said looking drained due to exhaustion and heat.

Back home, they have three young children and a mother-in-law waiting for them.

(With inputs from agencies)