In a heartbreaking video, a baby who was seen trying to wake up his dead mother with a shroud covering the body at a railway station in Bihar.
The video, shared by NDTV, shows the child walking unsteadily up to his mother's body, tugging at the blanket placed over her and when failing to wake her up, covering his own head with it. As the mother lay still, he wobbles away from her.
In the background, announcements can be heard about the arrival and departure of trains that would bring in tens of thousands of people in a rush to get away from hunger and hardship they face in large cities that could sustain them no more.
As per a report by NDTV, the woman had died of extreme heat, hunger and dehydration. The video is from a station in Muzaffarpur in Bihar, where the 23-year-old woman had arrived on Monday in a special train for migrants.
After the video went viral on social media, netizens took to Twitter and expressed their anger at the apathy of people in power towards the hardships faced by migrants. One user said, "Responsibility lies at the doors of Union government, state governments and finally Supreme Court. But totally heart-breaking and a shame for a nation claiming global leadership."
Another user said, "The tragedy and horrors continue while we continue in our cocoons believing that everything that could be done was done and play the blame game."
Here's what netizens had to say:
A massive exodus of migrant workers is on in several parts of the country. The humanitarian crisis still unfolding on highways and railway platforms has shone light on disturbing tales of families walking hundreds of kilometres on foot with little children in a seemingly endless march to escape hunger. People have been found travelling in trucks and in the hollow of concrete mixing plants, and in many cases, dying from hunger and exhaustion before reaching their destinations.
