Mumbai migrant crisis: Police register FIR against 1,000 workers over lockdown violation

An FIR has been registered against at least 1000 migrant workers for assembling near Bandra railway station in Mumbai on Tuesday in defiance of the coronavirus lockdown norms, causing a public health scare, police said. No arrests have been made yet and the workers are being identified, a Bandra police station official said.

"We have registered an FIR under sections 143 (Whoever is a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (Punishment for rioting), 149 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 186 (Obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," he said.

Besides section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act has also been invoked against them, he said.

More than 1,000 migrant workers, who earn daily wages and been stuck in Mumbai since the last three weeks, gathered in Bandra around 3 PM demanding transport arrangements to go back to their native places, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the coronavirus-enforced curbs till May 3.

The gathering in suburban Bandra, in violation of lockdown norms, created a potential law and order situation for an overstretched police force and the men in uniform resorted to mild force to scatter the crowd.

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