May 16 was just another tiring day for migrant workers in the midst of the Covid-19 lockdown. Tired of walking endlessly to reach their villages in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, around 50 migrants travelling from Rajasthan had hitched a ride with a goods truck. However, the truck went on to collide with a van in Auraiya district in Uttar Pradesh.
The high intensity of the crash caused both the vehicles to overturn, killing at least 24 migrant labourers on board and leaving the others critically injured.
This road crash in Auraiya district is one of the numerous mass fatalities to have been reported in the country since a nationwide lockdown was declared in March. On average, every second road crash claimed at least one person’s life during the lockdown – a time when a vast majority of the population was restricted to the confines of their home. In fact, 750 deaths in…
