Over 400 migrant workers packed in 10 buses coming from Assam were not allowed to cross into Alipurduar district in Bengal as none of them could produce Covid-19 negative certificate, a pre-condition to enter Bengal since stricter restrictions had come into effect in the morning.

Officials said about 400 migrant labourers, who used to work in different construction sectors and in private firms in Assam, were returning their homes in Bengal and Bihar by hiring 10 buses as the Assam government had announced a lockdown in the state. The police team deployed at the border stopped the buses and asked for the negative RT-PCR reports of each of the passengers entering the state.

“None of them had the certificates.... So, we didn’t allow them to enter,” said a police officer.

Sources said the migrant workers told the police that they would conduct the tests at the nearest health centres at their villages in Bengal, but the cops didn’t let them in.

Dhiraj Kumar Pandey, a resident of Bihar’s Katihar and an employee of a private firm in Guwahati, was clueless to the next move to reach his home in Bihar.

“I have been stuck here since 12 noon and don’t know how I can reach my village. I didn’t know about this report requirement,” said Pandey.

The Bengal government had ordered stricter restrictions to arrest the spread of Covid from Sunday morning for the next 15 days with an instruction to all districts having interstate borders to keep an additional vigil on movement of people from the neighbouring states. The district authorities have been asked not to allow anyone to cross over to Bengal without an RT-PCR negative test report, which is valid for 72 hours.

Bengal has borders with states like Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and Assam and there are at least 100 such border outposts in Bengal.

According to the order issued by traffic headquarter in Calcutta to all police chiefs in districts and commissionerates, all the districts have been asked to send daily reports on number of spots under surveillance, number of vehicles approaching the border, the number of passengers and the number of persons who were barred from entering the state for not possessing Covid negative reports.

Not just the migrant workers from Assam who got stuck in Alipurduar, similar reports came from other inter-state borders as hundreds of people were refused entry in the state through borders in Birbhum and West Burdwan, which share multiple borders with Jharkhand.

“We are strictly following the direction of the government to ensure entry of

people from Jharkhand with negative test reports. All police stations have set up Naka checking points at the entry points. We are monitoring the borders round the clock,” said Nagendra Nath Tripathi, the Birbhum police chief.

Sources said the interstate borders play a very important role as a large number of people always visit Bengal for their livelihood and health issues. However, the flow was very low on Sunday compared to other days as nearest police stations of neighbouring states were informed about the stricter restriction in Bengal.

Police sources said in a few cases, where the vehicles carrying essential commodities, the police requested the people concerned to get a Rapid test report from the nearest hospitals.

“In several areas, we helped people in emergency to get rapid tests done from nearest hospitals,” said a police source.