UP bureaucrat mocks migrant workers walking home

A senior Uttar Pradesh bureaucrat came under attack from different quarters after he mocked the migrant workers walking hundreds of miles on foot to their native towns and villages amid the lockdown.

On Wednesday a picture of a woman migrant worker pulling her trolley bag on which her exhausted little child slept had gone viral on the social networking sites.

The woman, who was part of a group of a dozen migrant workers, were on way to Mahoba in UP from Ludhiana in Punjab, around 900 kilometres.

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The group was passing through Agra when the picture was clicked by a passer-by.

Agra district magistrate Prabhu Narain Singh, when asked about the picture, said that he too used to travel in the same way in his childhood.

''I also used to travel in this way in my childhood,'' Singh said in a display of utter insensitivity.

He also refused to acknowledge the difficulties being faced by the migrant workers saying that the government had made arrangements for providing them food and shelter and also transport.

The opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) demanded action against the DM for his 'insensitive' remark.