Kochi: Defying the lockdown and social distancing in Kerala, thousands of migrant labourers, mostly from West Bengal, thronged the streets of plantation rich Payippadu near Chenganessery in Kottayam district giving the police and local administration a tough time on Sunday.
Adding to the trouble and confusion on how to disperse the crowd was a huge communication gap – the labourers knew only Bengali and a smattering of Hindi while the local police knew neither.
Thumbing their nose at the lockdown implemented under the watchful eyes of CM Pinarayi Vijayan, the labourers stepped out of the camps they were put up in demanding they be allowed to go home.
They asked the authorities to provide vehicles so they could go home. Many said they were inspired by the way migrant labourers defied the lockdown in Delhi and proceeded to their hometown in UP.
The Delhi government provided them buses and similarly, the Kerala government should decide to provide transport facilities for us, they added. The district administration put their foot down on the demand for transportation stating it is impossible to send the labourers all the way to Bengal from Kerala during the nationwide lockdown.
The administration maintained they have been providing food and water to all labourers and that will be continued. The labourers admitted food and water had been provided to them, but a few alleged they had been scares money out of their pockets and were unable to carry on anymore.
“We are getting food, but we want to go home. We are mainly from West Bengal, we want to go to Malda,” a labourer told the media in broken Malayalam.
“Our money is running out; how will we buy water and food? Our families back in Bengal are also crying for us,” he said. After a review, Kottayam District Collector PK Sudheer Babu said around 8,500 migrant labourers live in the Panchayat and 5,000 have already gone home.
“They did not complain about the lack of food at the panchayat meeting. I had even visited the camp too. They did not want cooked food from community kitchens but wanted raw materials so they could cook their own food, ”he said.
