A special non-stop train with 1,200 migrants left Telangana for Jharkhand’s Hatia on May Day, officials said on Friday.
According to railway officials, the train was operated as a one-off service on Friday morning from Telangana’s Lingampalli station at 5 a.m.
Railway Protection Force (RPF) Director General Arun Kumar said “A non-stop train from Telangana to Jharkhand started this morning with 1,200 migrants.” The train will reach Hatia around 11 p.m. the same day.
According to officials in Jharkhand, the state government has made adequate arrangements for the testing and quarantine of the migrants returning to the state on board the special train.
Friday’s development comes in the wake of protests on Wednesday by hundreds of migrant workers at the IIT (Hyderabad) campus located in Sangareddy district of Telangana.
Hundreds of migrants, mostly from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and other states, are employed as construction workers at the IIT campus. The migrants had resorted to stone-pelting on Wednesday as they had allegedly been not paid and were asked to resume work at the site.
They have been demanding with the authorities to send them back to their homes.
Officials arranged buses for transporting the workers from IIT, Hyderabad to Lingampally station on Friday.
Ever since the national lockdown on March 24, the railways have suspended the passenger, mail and express train services in a bid to combat the spread of novel coronavirus.
Railways authorities initially remained tight-lipped about the train as last month, hundreds of migrants had reached Bandra terminus railway station after rumours spread that train services were resuming.