For Rs 3k, packed trucks are sneaking migrant workers out of Noida

Noida: The desperation of migrant workers has spawned an illegal transportation industry in Noida. For anything between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000, those driving trucks, loaders and private buses are smuggling workers home. Social distancing is not even a possibility in the cramped spaces at the back of the trucks or overloaded buses.
Just this month, Noida police have seized 30 trucks and loaders and arrested their owners for attempting to carry migrants without passes to their home districts in UP and home state in Bihar. Taking the Mahamaya flyover, the trucks and loaders go past the Sector 62 crossing, Chilla border, Sector 51, Phase II and Pari Chowk.
Inside, at first glance, the trucks appear to be transporting goods under tarpaulin and cloth covers, tightly packed. But somewhere beneath the covers are found migrant workers. “In one truck seized on Sunday, 10 migrant workers were hiding beneath packed goods. They were from UP and Bihar. We booked the driver for lockdown violation,” station house officer of the Sector 39 police station, Shailesh Tomar, told TOI. Then on Tuesday, a mini truck was found transporting 10 labourers to Bihar from central Noida, DCP (central Noida) Harish Chander said.
Then there are private buses that try and transport workers home without passes. On Wednesday night, a bus carrying 54 workers to Bihar was caught on the way. “In the bus, too, no social distancing norm was being followed. About Rs 1 lakh was seized, money that had been collected from the passengers,” a police officer said. DCP Chander said the driver, conductor and another accomplice was arrested.
The migrant workers were sent to a shelter home.