4 More Accidents: 17 Migrant Workers Killed In UP, Bihar, Maharashtra

At least 17 migrant labourers were killed in four different incidents in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, report said on Tuesday. 

Nine people were killed in Bihar, five in Uttar Pradesh and four in Maharashtra. The incidents come at a time when news of migrant workers dying in road accidents have become an everyday affair amid the Covid-19 lockdown. 

Lakhs of migrant workers are still walking or cycling home because of a lack of transport amid the lockdown. While the Narendra Modi government and state governments have arranged for special trains to bring them home, they have just not been enough to meet the demands. 

A sudden lockdown that was announced almost two months ago has left these workers — who are mostly daily wagers — without jobs and money. In such dire circumstances, they have had no other choice but to take arduous journeys back home. 

Nine killed in Bihar 

On Tuesday morning, nine migrant workers were killed in Bihar when the truck they were travelling in met with an accident with a bus. 

The Indian Express reported that the incident took place in the Naugachhia town in Bhagalpur. 

The report said that the truck was carrying 15 workers home, they had arrived in the state in a train from Bengaluru. 

The report said that the incident took place at 2 am on NH-31. 

Five dead in Uttar Pradesh in two accidents 

Five migrant workers were killed in two separate accidents in Uttar Pradesh.

PTI reported that a truck carrying migrant labourers overturned on the Jhansi-Mirzapur highway in Mahoba that left three women dead and 17 others injured. 

SP, Mahoba, Mani Lal Patidar said that the workers had walked from Delhi and had boarded the truck near Harpalpur along the UP-MP border.

The report said that the truck fell into a ditch after its tyre burst killing the women on the spot. The injured were take to a government hospital. 

NDTV reported that another truck accident killed two people in Unnao on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway. The report said that 23 people were also injured. 

The truck was carrying migrant workers from Delhi to Azamgarh, the report said. 

Four killed in Maharashtra 

Reports said that a bus and truck accident in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district killed four people — three of whom were migrant workers and one person was the driver of the state bust they were traveling in. 

ASI Mahajan of Yavatmal police control room told Huffpost India’s Pavan Dahat that incident took place near Kolwan village in Arni tehsil of Yavatmal when the bus crashed into a truck at around 5 am.

The migrant workers were going from Solapur to Nagpur where they were supposed to board a Shramik special train to Jharkhand, their home state. 

Correction: This copy has been updated to reflect that of the four people killed in Maharashtra, three were migrant workers, and one was the driver of the bus they were travelling in.

(with PTI inputs)