Detained Briefly By Delhi Police After Meeting Rahul Gandhi, Migrants Get Cong Help

The Congress party on Saturday alleged that a group of migrants who were walking from Ambala in Haryana to Jhansi in UP were detained by the Delhi police shortly after party leader Rahul Gandhi met them near the Sukhdev Vihar flyover.

Gandhi, said Congress sources, had gone to the Sukhdev Vihar locality near the Delhi-Faridabad border to interact with the traveling migrants.

However, the migrants were allowed to leave after Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee leaders spoke to the cops. Anil Choudhury, DPCC chief, says police said not more than two migrants should travel together. Congress is arranging vehicles to ferry the migrants now. 

The migrant workers were forced to walk back to their native villages in and around Jhansi after being left without money, jobs and food due to the ongoing lockdown.

While the Delhi police have not issued any official statement on the incident, Congress sources allege that the migrants were placed under preventive detention and that the police personnel claimed they had "directions from the top" to do so.

The Congress media cell also shared images of the Wayanad MP interacting with the migrants.

Gandhi has consistently been urging the central government to urgently address the humanitarian crisis caused by the exodus of migrants from their place of work to their native towns and villages. Over the past week, several incidents of traveling migrants dying in road accidents while on their journey back home have come to light.