In a bid to evade the state government’s new 28-day mandatory quarantine that was enforced three days ago, at least 20 migrant workers, who were returning to Odisha on a Shramik Special train from Ahmedabad, a coronavirus disease hot spot in Gujarat, allegedly jumped off their train in Angul district on Sunday evening.
As per media reports, the train slowed down near a railway bridge at Majhika in Angul district, when around 20 migrant workers jumped off.
“Though at least 20 of them had tried to escape, we caught only seven and handed them over to the police,” said Birabara Nayak, sarpanch of Benagadia gram panchayat.
Jagmohan Meena, superintendent of police (SP), Angul, said that the seven people, who were apprehended, belonged to the neighbouring Deogarh district. “They’re apprehensive of staying in an institutional quarantine facility for 28 days. They’ve been lodged at a quarantine centre in Angul district,” the SP said.
In another separate similar incident, a bus, carrying 30 migrants from Odisha, who were coming from Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram district, dropped 15 of them in Cuttack town on Monday morning instead of taking them to a quarantine centre in Jagatsinghpur district.
The authorities put six of them at a Cuttack college, which has been converted into a quarantine centre, and the rest of nine of them travelled to Jagatsinghpur district in an auto-rickshaw.
For the uninitiated, the state government had announced three days ago that it would be mandatory for migrant workers to be quarantined for 28 days after it took note of a longer incubation period for SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease.
Here’s all you need to know about Indian Railways Shramik Special train service
