Hundreds of migrant workers broke into a protest in an industrial belt in Kerala early on Tuesday after the discovery of the body of a co-worker on the railway tracks near a construction site on Monday night. Two other workers were also found badly injured on the tracks and later died.

The three workers from Jharkhand were found on the tracks near the Indian Institute of Technology campus in Palakkad around 10.30pm on Monday. A large number of migrant workers are engaged in constructing a new building on the IIT campus.

While Hari Om, 29, was found dead, Vishwakarma, 21, and Arvind Kumar, 23, were found badly injured apparently after being hit by a passing train.

Kumar and Vishwakarma succumbed to their injuries while being taken to a hospital.

Preliminary probe by police revealed that the three workers were hit by a train. But it was not clear if the workers had walked onto the tracks by mistake or committed suicide.

“Only a post-mortem report will be able to give conclusive evidence. The procedure for conducting post-mortem on the three bodies is under way,” deputy superintendent of police Manoj Kumar told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

He said a decision has not yet been taken on repatriating the bodies to the families of the workers. “At the moment we are not sure if the last rites would be conducted here or the bodies would be sent back to their home states,” Kumar said.

The incident triggered massive protests late on Monday night with about 500 workers holding the body of Om throughout the night.

“There were only 15 policemen on the spot who reached there soon after we got information about the incident. But we had to withdraw in the wee hours (of Tuesday) to get reinforcements as the workers refused to hand over the body (of Om),” said Kumar.

“Our main objective was to avoid any kind of conflict with the workers. So we tried our best to calm them down. But they attacked our men,” he said.

Three policemen were injured when the workers went on a rampage by smashing windscreens of an ambulance and police vehicles.

“Last night they demanded that the kin of the deceased be given compensation of Rs 50 lakh each,” said the officer.

The workers calmed down and ended their 13-hour protest only after the deployment of a larger number of policemen.

District officials visited the spot on Tuesday morning and took custody of the body of Om after a lengthy discussion with the protesters.

The district authorities promised to help in returning the bodies of the deceased to their home states at the earliest.

Kumar said most of the workers who demanded that they be sent back home had been recently flown back by the contractors engaged in the construction of the new building on the IIT campus.

“We had earlier sent them (workers) home on Shramik Express trains before they were flown back to complete the work. But now they want to go back home,” he said, adding the district administration would work out a plan to repatriate the migrant workers.

Kerala had witnessed several protests by migrant workers after the lockdown. Although the state government had provided facilities like free accommodation, food and medical care, a large number of migrant workers had hit the streets violating Covid-19 protocols seeking trains to return home.

While most of the workers have left Kerala, there were some who opted to stay back and work.