Three migrant labourers and an infant girl were killed and 46 others suffered injuries in two road accidents when they were returning home in Uttar Pradesh from other states during the coronavirus-induced lockdown, officials said on Wednesday.
A truck carrying a group of 54 migrant labourers and their families from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh rammed into a stationary truck near Lalpur police post on Kanpur-Jhansi highway, killing three people and injuring 43 others.
According to Superintendent of Police (Kanpur Dehat) Anurag Vats, "The deceased persons have been identified as Rohit (25), Hiraman (50) and Sumaiyya (2), all residents of Balrampur."
The injured have been admitted to the district hospital, the police officer said, adding that eight of them were critical and referred to the Lala Lajpat Rai (LLR) Hospital in Kanpur.
In Chitrakoot, a migrant labourer returning home in Uttar Pradesh from Chhattisgarh on bicycle was killed after being hit by a truck.
Forty-year-old Mohan, a resident of Saharanpur, was returning home along with three others on Tuesday evening when the accident took place, they said.
The labourers had stopped on the roadside near Kalchiha village here to take rest when they were hit by a speeding truck, the police said.
All the four suffered injuries in the accident and taken to a community health centre in Mau village, where Mohan died. Mau community health centre superintendent Shekhar Vaishya said condition of the three other workers was stable.
The truck has been seized and its driver arrested, the police said.
The workers, hailing from Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar districts, were working at a jaggery factory in Raipur in Chhattisgarh.
The factory was closed due to the ongoing lockdown enforced to check the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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