New Delhi: Hit-and-runs, collisions and even a train speeding down the tracks have killed scores of migrants since the lockdown began and injured many more making a perilous journey home along roads that are empty, winding and seemingly endless.
As vehicles careen down deserted roads and lakhs of migrants are on the move — packed into trucks and tempos, riding rickety cycles or just walking towards their villages, hundreds, maybe thousands, of kilometres away – the death count from accidents rises inexorably with each day of the lockdown.
The SaveLife Foundation, a non-profit organisation working towards curbing road accidents in the country, has recorded nearly 2,000 road crashes and 368 deaths from March 25 when the lockdown began to May 16 (11 am). Of these, 139 deaths are of migrants travelling back home, 27 of essential workers and 202 of others, it said.
“Of the total 368 deaths reported, over 100 were recorded from Uttar Pradesh alone.
The top five states in this tally include Madhya Pradesh (30), Telangana (22), Maharashtra (19) and Punjab (17). The most common factor for these road crashes was speeding,” SaveLife Foundation CEO Piyush Tewari told PTI.
As the numbers spiralled, slowly, steadily and then in what appeared to be a torrent, a pattern emerged.
Many of the tragedies occurred in the dark, which is when it is cooler to walk, and many people were caught in their sleep.
That’s what happened on Saturday, too, when a trailer rammed into a stationary truck in the pre-dawn darkness around 3.30 am on a highway near Auraiya in Uttar Pradesh, killing at least 24 people and injuring 36.
A few hours later, tragedy unfolded in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, when five migrant workers going from Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh were killed when a truck carrying them overturned on the Sagar-Kanpur Road.
The combination of no traffic and speeding vehicles has led to havoc, endangering the lives of those who found themselves without work or money in the coronavirus-induced lockdown and were frantic to get home, any which way. (PTI)
