Nearly 100 migrants found in trucks bound for Bihar

Delhi police detected nearly 100 migrants hiding inside two trucks in a desperate bid to reach home in Bihar, and arrested the drivers of the vehicles for illegally transporting them during a nationwide lockdown, officials said on Sunday.

The trucks were intercepted near Southeast Delhi's Kalindi Kunj on Saturday night. One of the trucks had 63 migrants and the other was carrying 34, they said.

Driver Upender Singh Yadav, who also owned the vehicle, was ferrying migrants to Lakhisarai district. The other truck driven by Dharmendra Kumar Yadav was carrying 34 migrants to Madhubani district, said RP Meena, the deputy commissioner of police (southeast).

The owner of the second vehicle, Shrawan Yadav, was not in the vehicle.

The migrants, living in jhuggi colonies in RK Puram and Okhla Phase-1 in the national capital, were charged money for the travel by the transporters, Meena added.

A case was registered under various charges, including for violating the lockdown and negligent act likely to spread infection, officials said.

Delhi police said their counterparts from Noida helped them in impounding the vehicles and added that the labourers have been sent to their colonies.

Since the lockdown was imposed on March 25, migrants across the country have been trying to reach home in various parts of the country.

Though the central government is running special trains to ferry them and some states have operated buses to bring their residents home, the migrants have started to walk while others are riding bicycles. The rest are packing themselves into trucks to reach home.