A total of 1,175 migrant labourers and a couple of patients from 10 districts in Jharkhand reached Dhanbad station from Kerala around 11.45am on Monday in a special train, a day after the return of 956 students from Kota in Rajasthan.
The special train had passengers from Dhanbad, Bokaro, Giridih, Koderma, Deoghar, Dumka, Godda, Jamtara, Sahebganj and Pakur.
Dhanbad deputy commissioner Amit Kumar, senior superintendent of police Akhilesh B. Verior and several government officials welcomed the train from Kozhikode and offered the passengers roses in the presence of railway officials.
On alighting from the train, the passengers underwent thermal scanning at the station and they were provided food packets and packaged drinking water.
They were then brought in several buses to Golf Ground, less than a kilometre from the station, where a second thermal scanning of all the passengers was done.
A total of 27 migrant labourers were asked to step aside for further medical tests because of higher body temperature but after further examination by doctors they were sent to their respective places in buses arranged by the district administration.
Some labourers however accused a bus conductor of taking Rs 870 from them for journey to Dhanbad when they were boarding the bus from their workplace at Manur to reach Kozhikode to embark the train to Dhanbad.
Mohammad Sarafat Ansari, 27, a labourer from Palajori block in Deoghar, said: “I went to Manur to work in a steel furniture workshop on February 23 with another worker from my home in Deoghar. I had a return ticket of March 21. But because of the lockdown we had to stay back and our employer provided us with food and salaries during this period.”
“We boarded the train at 6.30pm on Saturday from Kozhikode and reached the station in a bus from Manur arranged by the local administration. But the bus conductor asked Rs 870 from each passenger before allowing us to board the bus. I don’t know whether the money paid was for the entire journey but we had a comfortable travel. We were provided food and other refreshments and the train didn’t stop anywhere during the journey except for 15 minutes at Gomoh station on Monday,” he said.
Students back
Over 184 students of Bokaro arrived at the district headquarters on Sunday night from the coaching hub of Kota in Rajasthan and have been kept under home quarantine.
Deputy commissioner (DC) Mukesh Kumar and Bokaro superintendent of police (SP) Chandan Kumar Jha received the students at the sector 11 quarantine facility in the city after they arrived at 11pm in buses from Dhanbad.
Mukesh said: “To ensure they and their families remain safe, we are putting them into 14 days of home quarantine,” the DC said.
Additional reporting by Suresh Prasad Nikhar