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Cop injured as migrant workers in Kerala protest demanding they be sent back home

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Press Trust of India Thiruvananthapuram

A group of migrant

workers sheltered in a camp here staged a protest on Sunday demanding that they be sent back to their home states and indulged in stone pelting, injuring a circle inspector, police said.

There were around 300 workers from other states in the camp and investigation was on to identify the culprits who indulged in violence, they said.

Pettah Circle Inspector Girilal was injured in the stone pelting and had been shifted to a hospital, police said.

"We received an information that guest workers were gathering at an area near their camp in a city suburb, violating the COVID-19 lockdown protocol.

 

As we reached there, they went inside their camp and started hurling stones at us," a police official told PTI.

The workers demanded that arrangements be made for their return to native states, police said.

Similar protests had been reported in the state, including in Kannur and Kozhikode, during the ongoing lockdown with the workers demanding that they be allowed to go home.

Kerala has already sent back 24,088 migrant labourers to their home states by 21 non-stop special 'Shramik' trains operated by the railways after the Centre gave the nod early this month.

They included 10,017 workers in nine trains to Bihar, 5,689 on five trains to Jharkhand and 2,293 in two trains to Uttar Pradesh.

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First Published: May 10 2020 | 9:40 PM IST

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