Mangaluru: Thousands of migrants eager to return home protest outside Central Rly stn

Mangaluru: Thousand of migrant workers who have been stranded in the city since the lockdown gathered at Mangaluru’s central railway station in the hope that trains had been arranged for their departure.

After dilly dallying on the arrangement of Shramik special trains for workers, the state government on Thursday wrote letters to principal nodal officers of nine states seeking in-principle consent to ferry the stranded labourers. Plans of operating special trains between May 8-15 are afoot.

Meanwhile the workers, who are eager to return home thought that the arrangements have been made and gathered in huge numbers at the railway station here. Things went awry when railway officials asked them to leave as no train had been arranged for their departure yet.

The workers staged a flash protest outside the station with ‘we want to go home’ placards.

They refused to budge from the spot despite several appeals made by the police. Police quoted the migrants as saying that they were stuck in the city without jobs, money and adequate food and that they were even willing to walk to their home states if the special trains were not operated immediately.