COVID-19 lockdown: Delivery agent dies while walking home from Delhi
Bhopal/IBNS: A 38-year-old man died on the way while walking over 200 km from Delhi to reach his home in Madhya Pradesh after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus in the country, media reports said.
The victim, identified as Ranveer Singh, who worked as a delivery agent in Delhi, was among the thousands of migrants desperately trying to return to their hometowns.
Singh had started walking to his village in Madhya Pradesh's Morena district, around 326 km from the national capital after the 21-day lockdown was announced by PM Modi to combat the deadly virus.
He collapsed on the highway in Uttar Pradesh's Agra.
A local shopkeeper offered him tea-biscuits but soon, Ranveer had a heart attack and died.
The man was about 80 km away from his village when he died.
Distressing accounts surfaced on Saturday night from the national capital where thousands of migrant workers, even while fearing for their lives due to virus spread, crowded into bus terminals around Delhi to return back to their hometowns and villages in Uttar Pradesh after they are left with no jobs, shelter or money.
Several narratives of men, women and children trekking on foot in searing heat to their villages have also surfaced after PM Modi's announcement of lockdown for three weeks.
Even as the Central and State Governments are time and again assuring of food availability to the poor sections, the migrant workers stated that since they are left with no jobs, they don't have money to pay for their shelters in Delhi.
The inter-state bus and train services are not available to the Indians making it tough for the migrant workers to travel back to their native lands though the government has urged all people to remain wherever they were.
Responding to their cry, the Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments arranged special buses to ferry the people home.
While the UP government said it had organised 1,000 buses, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said 200 DTC buses were pressed into service.
However, the way people crowded in these bus stations, as shown in several media platforms, has further increased the fear of community spread of the virus since the very purpose of social distancing gets affected due to such moves.
Delhi Police officers wearing masks could be seen in videos carrying lathis and loudspeakers in their attempt to organise the mass of people.
So far, India registered 959 positive cases of COVID-19 and 23 deaths across the country.
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