Late in the afternoon of May 9, Chitrasen Divakar got a call from the authorities in his home district, Mungeli, in Chhattisgarh. They aske...
Late in the afternoon of May 9, Chitrasen Divakar got a call from the authorities in his home district, Mungeli, in Chhattisgarh. They asked him to reach Secunderabad railway station to board a train leaving for Chhattisgarh on May 11.
Ever since India went into lockdown on March 24 to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the 28-year-old construction worker had been stranded in Hyderabad, 900 kilometres away from home.
He worked at a construction site in Gachibowli, a corporate hub in the suburbs of Hyderabad. It was 25 kilometres away from the Secunderabad railways station. Divakar, his wife and 15 other members of their family were keen to go home. But they did not have the railway movement pass that the local police station said was mandatory for every migrant worker wishing to return home.
After he received the phone call, Divakar stepped up his efforts to get a pass. Later that evening, his hopes were dashed as he gathered from news circulating in his WhatsApp group that there were no trains leaving from Secunderabad for Chhattisgarh on May 11.
Divakar is among lakhs of migrants from Chhattisgarh who work in the booming construction sectors of cities like Hyderabad. Adivasis from the state’s Bastar region...
