Mumbai: Tired of police delay, 1,000 gather in Nagpada, get lathis and a night train

MUMBAI: Around 1,000 migrant labourers gathered near Hotel Rippon Palace in Nagpada on Wednesday morning, demanding a train be arranged for them to go to their homes. The police lathi-charged and dispersed them.
Locals said that the migrant workers had been making the rounds of the Nagpada police station for weeks and had submitted their documents. The police said they had been checking the documents of the migrants who had applied at the police station to go home.
In the evening, the police began calling them to send them to their hometowns by a night train bound for Uttar Pradesh with space for 1,200 migrant workers.
The morning gathering had caught the police by surprise and reinforcements had to be called in. The migrant labourers had gathered near Rippon Palace with their belongings in bags, demanding immediate transport.
“Most of them work in zari units, purse making units, leather units, shoe manufacturing units. Since lockdown, they are sitting idle. At some places, some labourers are getting partial salary and some places they are getting food. Many of them complained they had run out of money and just wanted to go to their hometown,” a resident said.