Bhubaneswar: In a shocking incident, a migrant worker spent two days and nights in a jungle. Upon returning from Chennai to his native village in Odisha’s Ganjam district, he was allegedly denied permission to stay in the quarantine centre. He was even debarred from entering his village.
The labourer, Barik Nayak, had reached Balasore by train and later to Bhanjanagar by bus, according to the sources.
Nevertheless, on arriving in his village, the local residents of the place refused to allow him entry into the village as they feared that he had been infected by the virus.
Disheartened, when he reached to his village Sarpanch and local authorities to assist him in getting admitted to any quarantine centre, they let him down and dint agree to help in any way.
Later, according to the labourer Nayak, he stayed in the jungle near his village and spent 2 days in it. The means through which he survived hasn’t been known yet but he is assumed to have eaten the wild fruits for feeding his hunger.
“He came from Chennai. He went to the police and block office but no one helped. Then, he went to the jungle,” a village local told.
He was found two days later by the police who then took him to a quarantine centre at Sanakodanda.
Odisha recorded more than 2800 positive covid-19 cases in the state after a spike seen on Saturday.
“From the 173 cases seen in just one day, 150 were in quarantine centres, where people returning from different states are staying. Twenty-three others were detected with the infection during contact-tracing exercises,” a health department official said.
The new infections were found to be from 14 districts. The major cases, 64, were reported in Ganjam, while 19 were found in Jaipur, 13 in Cuttack and Mayurbhanj each and 11 each Balasore and Bolangir followed by 10 in Gajapati.
Meanwhile, the Odisha government is airlifting 360 migrant workers from Jammu in a rare incident in the country where workers are dying travelling by foot for hundreds of kilometers amid the lockdown.
“Flight is being sponsored by the Odisha government. While we have provided state road transport buses to ferry these labourers to airport,” informed Tahir Ahmad, additional deputy commissioner, Jammu.
Over seventeen migrant workers have died in the state after either being hit over by vehicles, dying of hunger or committing suicide after being unable to reach to their native places.
