Courting death and injury, scores of migrants killed in accidents on way home

Hit-and-runs, collisions and even a train speeding down the tracks have killed scores of migrants since the lockdown began and injured many more making a perilous journey home along roads that are empty, winding and seemingly endless.

As vehicles careen down deserted roads and lakhs of migrants are on the move -- packed into trucks and tempos, riding rickety cycles or just walking towards their villages, hundreds, maybe thousands, of kilometres away the death count from accidents rises inexorably with each day of the lockdown.

The SaveLife Foundation, a non-profit organisation working towards curbing road accidents in the country, has recorded nearly 2,000 road crashes and 368 deaths from March 25 when the lockdown began to May 16 (11 am).

Of these, 139 deaths are of migrants travelling back home, 27 of essential workers and 202 of others, it said.

"Of the total 368 deaths reported, over 100 were recorded from Uttar Pradesh alone. The top five states in thistally include Madhya Pradesh (30), Telangana (22), Maharashtra (19) and Punjab (17). The most common factor for these road crashes was speeding," SaveLife Foundation CEO Piyush Tewari told PTI.

As the numbers spiralled, slowly, steadily and then in what appeared to be a torrent, a pattern emerged. Many of the tragedies occurred in the dark, which is when it is cooler to walk, and many people were caught in their sleep.

That's what happened on Saturday too, when a trailer rammed into a stationary truck in the pre-dawn darkness around 3.30 am on a highway near Auraiya in Uttar Pradesh, killing at least 24 people and injuring 36. The vehicles, one headed from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh and the other to Rajasthan, were ferrying labourers to their homes,