Police, with the help of locals in lower Assam’s Bongaigaon district, on Saturday stopped a 10-wheeler truck carrying 51 migrant workers.
The vehicle had entered the state from Bengal. All the workers were detained.
The migrants are now at different quarantine facilities here.
The incident took place at Chaprakata under Bongaigaon police station.
Kamrup (metro) deputy commissioner Biswajit Pegu told The Telegraph that all the migrant workers were screened medically and they have been kept in different quarantine centres in the city for further observation.
A Kamrup (metro) district official told this correspondent that the workers should have been quarantined at the lower Assam district itself
A police source in Bongaigaon district said, “When we asked whether they were screened at the border, they said they managed to elude the police and health officials at Srirampur, 80km west on the Assam-Bengal border.”
Every individual who enters Assam is subjected to mandatory medical screening for Covid-19 at the inter-state checkpost as per a government directive.
Bongaigaon deputy commissioner M.S. Lakshmi Priya said the police had detained the people with the help of locals after intercepting the vehicle for a routine check.
“They were coming from Bengal. They were provided food and sent to a quarantine facility in Guwahati after communicating with the Kamrup (metro) district administration. We arranged for a few vehicles to take them to Guwahati for adherence to physical distancing norms,” she said.
Protest: All India Students Association (AISA)-Assam State Committee, Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti (SMSS), the students’ wing of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) and Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) on Sunday staged a state-wise protest against the government demanding the safe
return of the migrant labourers of Assam who are stranded in different places of the country and also to provide them adequate ration until they find an alternate source of livelihood.
AISA on Saturday submitted a memorandum to chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
“Maintaining all the government protocols regarding the pandemic, the members of AISA protested in different parts of the state — Guwahati, Biswanath, Behali, Tinsukia, Rajgarh (Dibrugarh), Tingkhong, Teok, Dhemaji, Golaghat, Jorhat, Nalbari and Bajali on the issue,” an AISA statement said.