Authorities sent the bodies of deceased and survivors on three trucks, supposed to drop them at Jharkhand’s Bokaro and West Bengal’s Purulia.
Lucknow| Visuals of injured migrants traveling in an open truck with dead bodies wrapped in tarpaulin in Uttar Pradesh has anguished the Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who slammed this as an “inhuman act” robbing both the living and the dead of dignity.
On Saturday morning, 26 migrant workers died and over 30 were injured in an accident near Auraiya, around 200 KMs away from UP’s capital Lucknow. A day later, visuals made rounds on the internet in which both living and dead could be seen being transported in the same truck.
“This inhumane treatment of our migrant workers could possibly be avoided. I request @UPGovt & Office of @NitishKumar’ji to arrange suitable transportation of the deceased bodies till Jharkhand border & we will ensure adequate dignified arrangements to their homes in Bokaro,” Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren tweeted.
On Saturday, 2 buses coming from Rajasthan and Punjab collided with each other at 3.30 AM on a highway near Auraiya. 26 migrant workers died whereas more than 30 were injured in this accident.
On the next day, authorities sent the bodies of deceased and survivors on three trucks, supposed to drop them at Jharkhand’s Bokaro and West Bengal’s Purulia.
The trucks were stopped in Prayagraj after the outrage on the incident followed by Hemant Soren’s tweet. The bodies were transferred on the highway from trucks to ambulances.
Abhishek Singh, the district magistrate of Auraiya, said, “The photo that went viral will be investigated”.
The accident in Auraiya sparked a political battle between the ruling BJP and rival Congress.
The Uttar Pradesh unit of Congress party had accused the state government of being insensitive towards the plight of migrant workers demanding the Chief Minister to resign.
Adityanath said that the migrants who suffered the accident in Auraiya, some 200 KMs away from the capital Lucknow, were coming from the Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan and Punjab.
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