Around 40 migrant labourers who worked in Mumbai were apprehended in Thane on Friday morning after a failed escape bid to Uttar Pradesh in a truck amid the nationwide lockdown, police said.

In Delhi, a Government Railway Police head constable was suspended for allegedly a letting a group of migrant workers board an empty rake against a bribe, promising to ferry them home.

Migrant labourers from the cities, left unemployed and stranded amid the coronavirus-related lockdown, have been desperate to return home. Many such workers have set off on foot for their native places, some of them hundreds of miles away.

In Thane, the truck driver had told the police he was carrying vegetables in the vehicle, a police officer said.

“The 40 migrant labourers were trying to travel from Mumbai to their native places in Uttar Pradesh,” inspector (crime) D. Gawde of Kopri police station said.

The labourers have been booked on the charge of disobeying a public servant’s orders.

At New Delhi railway station, CCTV footage showed the head constable accepting money and allowing around 45 people board an empty rake of the Magadh Express on Thursday, the railways said.

“They assembled at the GRP chowki near Metro Gate No. 1 and moved to Platform 16,” Northern Railway spokesperson Deepak Kumar said.

“When RPF personnel saw this, reinforcements were called and all the workers were taken off the train and ousted.”

Sources said the policeman, identified as Satish Rathi, had taken Rs 500 from each of the desperate workers and shoved them into the rakes, which were not going anywhere. Apparently, the workers had been promised to be taken to Allahabad.