Hundreds of thousands of migrants who recently reached their home town in Bihar from different parts of the country, covering over 1,000 km on foot or pedalling ‘thelas’ (cart-wheels) or cycle-rickshaws, have now started either fleeing from State government’s quarantine centres in local government schools or are attacking the officials reaching out to them for their identification.
On March 30, local government officials were attacked at Dayalibigha village in Jehanabad. They had gone there to identify two people who had returned from Delhi recently. The villagers, attacked them, snatched their mobile phones, and damaged their vehicles.
Similarly, a team of doctors and paramedics were set upon by villagers in Munger district on Wednesday when they tried to pick up and isolate six people with suspected COVID-19 infection. Later, an FIR was lodged against four named and 100 unknown people with the Kasganj police station. Munger is the district from where Bihar’s first COVID-19 “zero patient” had died and all these six suspected people had come in contact with him.
Earlier, in Madhubani district too, villagers under Andhrathadi police station attacked a police team which went to trace people who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat centre in Delhi. Later, four people were arrested in the case.
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Last week, another police team was attacked in a village under Rupoh police station in Nawada district for asking people to maintain social distance and enforce lockdown. Four policemen, including the Rupoh police station in-charge Santosh Kumar, were injured.
In Ghailad block of Madhepura district, 50 migrants fled from nine government quarantine centres, complaining of lack of food and basic facilities.
Similarly, 11 migrants too ran away from the quarantine centres at Piro block in Bhojpur district for lack of basic infrastructure. Reports of similar incidents have come in from Supaul, Siwan and Begusarai districts.
3,000 govt. schools earmarked
The State government has earmarked over 3,000 government schools in different districts as quarantine centres for the migrants’ isolation.
“Over 25,000 migrants are currently staying at these centres in different districts and we are also in the process of setting up many more as per requirement,” a State Disaster Management Department official told The Hindu .
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had earlier made the State Disaster Management Department as the nodal department for setting up relief camps and quarantine centres as isolation wards for the migrants.
Mr. Kumar on Wednesday said that a total 1,70, 470 migrants, including 12,051 from foreign countries, had come to the State due to the lockdown and the government was making all arrangements to take care of them.
A 40-year-old migrant worker, Vilas Mahto, who was en route to his home at Bhagwanpur village in Vaishali district on foot from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh died at Dehri-On-Sone in Rohtas district on Wednesday because of lack of timely medical care and facilities.
The Patna police has, so far, seized 6,700 vehicles and collected ₹1.40 crore as penalty from those violating the lockdown in the district.
