Gurugram, May 11 (IANS): Desperate to return home as soon as possible amid the lockdown, over 400 migrant labourers from different states queued up at the Gurugram Civil Hospital to obtain mandatory health certificates while throwing social distancing norm to the wind.
Health certificates are required for booking train tickets for the return journeys. As labourers queued up outside the hospital in Sector 10 with little space to separate them from others, police and health officials faced a tough situation. A
The Civil Hospital is one of main isolation centre for Covid-19 in the city and considered highly sensitive area on the health front. At least five medical staff have since tested coronavirus positive after treating corona patients.
Besides, Gurugram tops corona-infected districts in Haryana, with 142 positive cases so far. This includes over 20 labourers of Khandsa vegetable and fruits wholesale market.
Asked about violation of social distancing, a labourer of Kadipur said that people like him were facing a precarious situation while stranded in Gurugram since the lockdown with no food and total dependence on others.
"In such a situation, who cares about social distancing. We are dying every day without any fault. Foreign returnees brought corona to our country and not poor labourers, but the latter are getting penalised. Hence, we want to go home at any cost," said Rahul Yadav, a resident of Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh.
Another labourer Shri Ram Kumar said: "Our savings have completely dried up and we are dependent on others. We start the day by queuing up to get food donated by people. It is humiliation we face every day, which has crushed our self-respect. I ask you to stand in a queue for food and experience our plight. It would be wise to stand in a queue to undergo thermal scanning and obtain medical certificates from authorities to return to our native villages. At least, we would stay there with some respect."
The situation in various cybercafes, tour operators' offices on the Khandsa Road is similar. A large number of people were found standing in queues to book tickets.