Thousands of migrant workers on Monday gathered at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal to board buses to return to their villages, hours after chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced a week-long lockdown to limit the second wave of Coronavirus. Even on Tuesday morning, migrant workers gathered at bus terminals as they rushed to leave for home.

By Monday evening at least 5,000 people had gathered at Anand Vihar ISBT in the hope of catching a bus home. In a desperate attempt to return to their villages, the Migrant workers were captured boarding an overcrowded bus and even paid for sitting on the roof of a bus.

Migrants workers have also arrived at Kaushambi Bus Terminal in Ghaziabad to return to their home towns in Uttar Pradesh. Notably, the Kaushambi ISBT was also a hot-bed of large-scale migrant laborers last year in March, when the lockdown was imposed. The scenario was no different at Sarai Kale Khan and Kashmere Gate bus terminals where students, women and labourers were looking for a way back home. 

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Police officials said over 5,000 people gathered at Anand Vihar including at ISBT as well as the railway station and the numbers were rising. He told the reporters that the Police officials deployed in the area are trying to counsel the migrant workers to stay back as the lockdown was for a few days only. However, migrants feared that the lockdown could be extended as the situation of Covid-19 was deteriorating day by day.

Delhi Police also said it will take strict action against rumour-mongering regarding the lockdown. The officials said anybody found spreading rumours on social media and Whatsapp etc about the lockdown being extended will not be spared.

During the nationwide lockdown last year, a large number of migrant workers from Bihar, UP and other states living in Delhi had moved to their home states, through whatever means available and often on foot.

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All Covid precautions were thrown to the wind when the Anand Vihar bus terminal saw chaotic scenes with people jostling for space on the foot overbridges and scrambling to take the first bus out or board a train. The mad rush at Kaushambi, from where buses leave for Uttar Pradesh, right across the road from Anand Vihar, only added to the chaos.

However, the weekend curfew had set the return journey to their homes in motion but on Monday it acquired an urgency. This time, however, they didn’t need to trudge it back home. The trains are running, albeit for those with confirmed tickets, and buses too are available.

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