Anantapur police intercepted 126 daily wage earners from Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, who were trying to cross over to Anantapur district at Kodikonda checkpost in the early hours of Sunday.
Chilamathur Sub-Inspector Venkateswarlu and other constables noticed several families going on foot at the checkpost and stopped all of them.
Anantapur police officers arranged food for all of them at a location close to the border check-post and late in the night and later talked to the police officials in Karnataka and convinced them to take them back to that State. All of them were sent back in special vehicles arranged for them. They said at many places there was shortage of food at many camps leading to people being fed only once a day.
From Madhya Pradesh 48 persons had gone to Bengaluru recently to work in the apartments for fixing tiles and 28 of them from Warangal in Telangana too had gone there recently to do some odd job and earn a living. Another batch of 50 persons used to sell electrical goods on pushcarts in Bengaluru and all of them used to stay close to Hebbal temporarily and go to their worksite everyday.
With the ‘Janata Curfew’ and national lockdown for COVID-19 implemented, they were asked to vacate their temporary shelters and leave for their homes, but by the time they tried to leave there was no public transport and they set out on foot. Another 300 persons were intercepted in the early hours of Saturday while they were travelling by lorries and sent back.
