As Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday morning announced the extension of the countrywide lockdown till May 3, around 1500 migrant labourers, mostly from Bihar and West Bengal took to the streets of Mumbai protesting against the extension.
The migrants gathered near the Banda bus stand and demanded that be allowed to travel to their home states as they are facing problems in getting food and other essential items due to the lockdown.
To control the situation, police resorted to lathi-charge, following which the crowd was dispersed.
"Around 1,500 people had gathered in Bandra to go to their homes, and while talking about the situation with the labourers, some of them got aggressive. For this, we had to use light force and the crowd was removed, now the situation is back to normal in the area," said Pranay Ashok, DCP PRO, Mumbai Police.
The incident soon turned into political blame game with Maharashtra CM's son Aaditya Thackeray blaming the Centre for failing to arrange transportation for the migrant workers to reach their home states. "Right from the day the trains have been shut down, the State had requested trains to run for 24 hours more so that migrant labour could go back home. CM Uddhav Thackeray ji raised this issue in the PM- CM Video Conf as well requesting a roadmap for migrant labour to reach home," he wrote on Twitter.
Defending the BJP, former state CM Devendra Fadnavis put the blame back on state government, saying that it needs to take the responsibility to make arrangements for the workers.
Later, Home Minister Amit Shah called CM Uddhav Thackeray and expressed concern over the Bandra gathering. Shah stressed that such events weaken India’s fight against COVID-19 and the administration needs to stay vigilant to avoid such incidents. He also offered his full support to Maharashtra government.
Maharashtra has emerged as the state with the highest number of positive cases of coronavirus. Till 12 PM on Tuesday, the state reported 2,455 positive cases.
