Migrants shooed out from ST stand, their meals halted

MSRTC staff claim cops stopped food distribution as vagrants from railway station were hopping over and thieving from travellers; police say spot vacated at the behest of transport officials

Aday after the overcast city began to greet its denizens with steady downpour, at least 150 stranded people of all ages were vacated from the premises of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus stand near Pune railway station by Tuesday evening, after spending the entire day on an empty stomach. Both transport officials and cops, who shooed the gathered destitute people away from here, had stopped social organisations from distributing food to them.

While the migrants, for whom this place had become home in recent times due to the COVID-19 lockdown, stated that they had settled here only to wait for transport back to their native places, the authorities put forth a different logic. They claimed that criminal vagrants from the railway station premises had infiltrated these migrant groups and started looting them, prompting the authorities to just send everyone away from the spot. According to them, legitimate migrants should go to civic body-run shelter homes, from where their travel will be officially formalised.

With no meals at hand, tensions had already bubbled over at the state transport (ST) stand earlier in the day, as activist who usually hand around meals here had not come since morning.

Around 2.30 pm, an impoverished man in his 50s had sat down with a plate of rice and begun eating. Some others gathered around immediately, with the hope of grabbing a shared bite. This in turn resulted in a scuffle, as he did not wish to share his meagre meal, which he said he purchased from outside with dwindling funds.


MSRTC officials rushed to intervene, requested people to move out of the premises and go to a shelter bang opposite the transport hub. However, afew youths joined the row and the situation escalated.

One of the people here, Vishal Waghmare from Ambejogai in Beed district, said, “Daily, we would get breakfast, lunch and dinner. But cops suddenly came and asked us to vacate. They also ordered that food will not be served to us anymore. We have all gone hungry and we have no place to go since intra-district travel is not allowed. What are we expected to do?”

Also squatting here was a small group of people from Rajasthan, who used to stay at shanties in Akurdi — they included senior citizens, 15 toddlers, five older children and a pregnant woman. None of them had eaten a bite till evening. The troupe had come walking to Pune railway station, in the hopes that they would get a train back to their home state. But, since the last two days, they were stuck here.


They were particularly worried about young Pooja Rajnath, who is in the ninth month of her pregnancy. She told Mirror, “I, and the child in my womb, are starved. It is raining and we cannot even move out. I can barely walk. I have no clue how I will survive.” Rinku Rajnath, a fellow group member, said, “We tried entering the shelter here, but we were told it is full. Now, they are also asking us to leave the stand. Where do we go, considering the people in our group?”

But the authorities were firm that crowding at the spot for food was leading to fears of infection spreading. They claimed that most of the persons at the stand are permanent homeless residents from the railway station, not stranded migrants, who only come for the meal distribution.

Speaking to Mirror, an MSRTC official laid the onus on the police, and said, “We let them stay on humanitarian grounds, as it was raining. But cops issued orders to stop serving food, saying there are criminals and vagrants from the station seeking shelter here. They claim that these persons are a menace as they are stealing from stranded migrants. We have decided to move the migrants out, so that the others can be shooed away.”

By Tuesday evening, the ST stand was vacant — all its desperate inmates had been sent off. Caught in the rain, most wandered off, helpless; a group of migrants was moved to a shelter in Kondhwa. Quizzed about all this, Shrikant Shinde, police inspector of Bund Garden police station, said the move came from transport officials. He claimed, “MSRTC officials sought our help and we vacated the place completely on their request. We stopped food supply as a result of this. The migrants should go back to their original destinations, from where local cops will coordinate and send them back to their home towns. Gathering at the junction is futile.”