A video surfaced online on Monday that showed a liquid solution being sprayed on a group of migrant labourers in Uttar Pradesh. Those who were spraying the liquid can be seen wearing protective gear.
The step was apparently taken by the UP government to sanitise labourers for checking the spread of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). The video is allegedly from Bareilly in UP, it was reported by news agencies.
The labourers had returned to UP from Delhi, Noida and Haryana in special buses that were arranged amidst the 21-day countrywide lockdown which started on March 24 midnight.
One of the men could be heard instructing in Hindi, asking the labourers to close their eyes and the eyes of their children. A district administrative officials was reported saying that chlorine water solution and no chemicals were sprayed on the labourers.
The official added that such a step was necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19 from the labourers who had arrived from other states. He said that this was the best possible solution they could think of given the large number of people who had reached the area.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi condemned it in a tweet and urged the UP government to not indulge in such “inhuman actions”. She said that the “labourers had already suffered a lot”. “Don’t bathe them in chemicals. This would further harm their health rather than protecting them,” she wrote.
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