After tons of migrant labourers took to the streets at Paippad in Kerala’s Kottayam district demanding transportation facilities to be able to return to their home states during the lockdown, a video has surfaced online wherein officials are seen spraying a liquid on workers travelling across the Kerala-Karnataka border in Wayanad.
This drew the same amount of backlash as compared with another incident in Uttar Pradesh on Monday where migrant workers were bathed in disinfectants.
However, a Kerala Fire and Rescue Services official clarified that only ‘soap solution’ was sprayed on the inter-state travellers.
This is Kerala, where agencies are mass ‘spraying’ people crossing borders. But all the outrage is reserved for UP, because a saffron clad monk of the BJP is the Chief Minister and is doing a good job!#IndiaFightsCorona while ‘The Lobby’ fights India…pic.twitter.com/FWCUxWbl5z
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 30, 2020
“It was just one incident at Muthanga in Wayanad,” A. Hemachandran, Director General of Police, Fire and Rescue Services, was quoted as saying, by the media
Amidst coronavirus lockdown for 21 days, may cities have seen a migrant exodus, with some reports claiming to be one of the largest migrations ever happened after partition. Workers are scared of their nutrition requirements, their food arrangements, they fear whether their basic needs will be met or not amidst such a widespread coronavirus pandemic.
