A bogie with five bodies reached Umaria, another with 11 reached Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh
Shahdol/Umaria, May 9.They had started their journey on foot from Maharashtra hoping to reach Madhya Pradesh, but it was their bodies that reached their home districts of Shahdol and Umaria by special trains on Saturday afternoon.
The bodies of 16 migrant labourers, who were run over by a goods train in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district, were brought to Jabalpur by two bogies attached to a special train.
From Jabalpur, the coaches were further sent to Shahdol and Umaria, said a police officer.A bogie with five bodies reached Umaria around 3 pm, where district officials received them and sent them to their villages in ambulances, he added.The five deceased belonged to Chilhari and Maman villages.Another bogie with 11 bodies reached Shahdol around 4 pm. Local Member of Parliament Himadri Singh and senior officials were present at the railway station.
These 11 deceased belonged to Antoli and Shahargarh villages of Shahdol district.In both districts, officials accompanied the ambulances carrying the bodies to respective villages, where the last rites would be performed.Sixteen migrant workers, sleeping on rail tracks while returning to Madhya Pradesh, were crushed to death by a goods train in Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, in the early hours of Friday.
The labourers, working in a steel factory in Jalna, left for their home state on foot. Exhausted, they slept on the tracks near Karmad, not knowing that traffic of goods trains had not ceased despite the lockdown.
Only four from the group of 20 survived; three of them were sleeping away from the tracks. Rendered jobless due to the lockdown and desperate to go to their native places, they were walking along the rail tracks apparently to escape police attention, officials said. PTI
