13,000 laborers from 5 states have clashed with police on Maharashtra-MP border for 2 days; Stone pelting

Iram Siddiqui

Thousands of migrant laborers have been waiting for some means to take them to their villages at Bijasan Ghat on the interstate border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. In the same crowd is Shambhu Rajbhar, whose face is filled with frustration, despair and anger. Rajbhar is waiting for a bus that can take him to Maharajganj in UP on the Indo-Nepal border. The new stop of his journey is his village located in Maharajganj district of UP.

However, he is not struggling alone on this gateway going north. Like him, about 13,000 migrant laborers have gathered at this ghat in Barwani district in the last few days. All of these people are workers from UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, who want to return to their homes in the Corona crisis and the loss of livelihood in lockdown.

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Unlike Rajbhar, there are many people who are unable to wait. In addition to a plumbering man in Mumbai, several people clashed with policemen on Thursday (May 14). Tired, losers, angry migrant workers also hurled brick and stone at the police and later blocked NH.

On May 10, ever since the Maharashtra government started transporting the migrant laborers on foot to Bijasan Ghat in the state, the place has turned into a battlefield. People are commuting to board buses. According to the Maharashtra government’s transport department, about 1.36 lakh migrant laborers have so far been transported by government buses to different borders of the state. 70 percent of these have been sent to the MP border.