Non-local labourers in J&K: Without money, little food, fewer options of leaving

With nationwide 21-day lockdown to fight the coronavirus resulting in unimaginable distress to lakhs of migrant workers, the situation in Kashmir is no different.

Hundreds of non-local labourers in Kashmir are without money, little food and even fewer options of leaving their squalid makeshift accommodation soon due to the lockdown.

In north Kashmir’s Sopore town, a few hundred migrant labourers, who have been picked up from their rented accommodations and lodged at a government degree college in the town, complained that the government had not provided food to them for the past three days.

Shahid Ahmad, a labourer from Bihar said since they were brought to the college on Friday morning, no eatables have been provided to them. All the labourers, he said, have exhausted the stock of food they had brought with them.

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“We had brought five kgs of rice and one kg of daal. Now we are left with nothing,” he said and complained that any effort to get food from the market was not being allowed by the police.

However, Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla said 2300 non-locals, who were accommodated in government established shelters, are being provided free rations on a daily basis. The DC said that the administration is scaling up the process of free distribution of essentials to those not having access under prevailing circumstances.

But similar complaints keep on pouring from other parts of the Valley. In Srinagar’s Hawal area, a group of migrant labourers told DH that neither they were allowed to move out nor they were being provided food by the authorities.

“It is because of some locals that so far we are getting food. But how long we will sustain like this. Either government should allow us to go back to our homes or take care of our needs,” said Noor Mohammad, a mason from Uttar Pradesh.

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According to a government survey at least 58,500 migrant labourers are stranded in Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of country-wide lockdown. Some among them haven’t washed for days because they do not have money to buy soap.

Javaid Ahmad, another labourer from Uttar Pradesh currently staying at uptown Chanapora, said, “We had no food to eat, but were provided food by locals in the evening. We are a group of 40 people staying here.”

Asked about any relief from the government, he said, “How do we entitle ourselves to relief when we don’t have ration cards?”