300 migrants claim they’re being held ‘hostage’ in shelter 5 mins from Nizamuddin Markaz

Migrant workers say they were on their way home to Punjab and Bihar but were brought to the shelter by police allegedly under false pretences.

At the shelter in Nizamuddin where the 300 workers are lodged | Photo: Bismee Taskin | ThePrint

New Delhi: Over 300 migrant workers, including men, women and children, have claimed they are being “held hostage” at a registered Delhi government shelter in the upscale Nizamuddin East neighbourhood.

The shelter, a converted school, is a five-minute walk from the Nizamuddin Markaz, the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, which has been linked to multiple Covid-19 cases in the country.

The migrants told ThePrint they were on their way back to their villages in Punjab and Bihar after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the 21-day national lockdown on 24 March when they were allegedly rounded up by police on “false pretexts” and “locked up” at the shelter, where they live in “punishing conditions”.

They claim they sleep on the floor where they are bitten by mosquitoes all night, and also complained about unclean toilets and having no access to clean water.

When ThePrint visited the shelter, it was clear that garbage hadn’t been cleared out in a few days and a pool of stagnant water sat on the lawn as an open invitation to mosquitoes, which in this season comes with the threat of dengue.

ThePrint reached Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs Atishi, Raghav Chadha and Saurabh Bhardwaj  for a comment but was unable to get a response. Calls to the AAP representatives went unanswered and texts weren’t responded to either.

The Delhi Police denied these allegations.

“These allegations are not true. In fact, the migrants who were on the road were brought to this shelter to ensure that they are safe and get enough food to eat,” a senior police officer who didn’t wish to be named told ThePrint.

‘Brought to shelter under false pretence’

The migrant workers told ThePrint that they were working in Agra and Jaipur when the nationwide lockdown was announced. They were on their way home, to Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, when they were brought to the shelter.

The shelter has been formed at the Satyawati Sood Arya Girls Senior Secondary School.

“I was at the Sarai Kale Khan railway station with my family, when the police asked us to get into a bus. They promised us that they would take us home. Instead, they brought us here,” a migrant worker told ThePrint.

 

Others alleged that the police brought them to Nizamuddin from ISBT in Kashmere Gate under similar false pretences.

“When we protested against being locked up, the police beat us up,” a migrant worker alleged.

“Police ne kaha ki tum dande ke bhoot ho (the police said that you’re stubborn),” a third worker claimed.

The workers say they were promised regular health check-ups due to the pandemic but as of Thursday no doctor or any other healthcare staff have shown up at the government school-turned-shelter.

The shelter is a five-minute walk from the Nizamuddin Markaz, from where over 2,361 people were evacuated Wednesday morning. This was after 24 people from the area tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday evening.

‘No basic facilities’

Despite such close proximity to a coronavirus hotspot, the 300 migrant workers aren’t anywhere close to following social distancing and say they aren’t being provided with daily essentials either.

The migrant workers alleged that they have to sleep on the floor without blankets and have had trouble with mosquitoes. They also said that the nearby gurdwaras and the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah were the only ones providing them food.

A migrant worker told ThePrint, “Only the sardars have helped us in these times. No one else has shown up.”

The workers also said they had no drinking water.

Arun Kumar, who is responsible for managing the shelter, admitted that there was no water. “We don’t have access to clean drinking water. Many of them are just drinking tap water,” he said.