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The Mumbai police are planning to arrest more people in connection with the illegal gathering of over 1,000 people at Bandra railway station Tuesday afternoon. In the last 24 hours, three FIRs have been filed and one person has been arrested.
On Tuesday, over 1,000 migrant labourers descended on Bandra railway station in suburban Mumbai, , who wanted to go back to their villages in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal but were stranded due to the lockdown.
The police had to resort to a mild lathi-charge to disperse the crowd.
Senior Police Inspector of Bandra police station, Vijayalaxmi Hiremath, told BusinessLine that some more people who had illegally gathered at the railway station are also expected to be arrested soon. The first FIR is against the mob, which had gathered at the railway station.
The second is against activist Vinay Dubey who had allegedly incited the labourers to come to the station through a Facebook post and the third FIR is against a TV news reporter for running fake news that train services would be resumed soon, she said.
Home Minister of Maharashtra, Anil Deshmukh, tweeted that, “I have ordered an investigation into the rumor that claimed trains to take migrants back home. Those found guilty of sparking such rumors will be dealt with severely invoking the fullest force of law.”
Without any baggage
A senior police officer said that people gathering in such large numbers at Bandra railway station, that too after so many days of continuous lockdown, is a matter of concern. From the video footage, it can be seen that the people had come to the railway station without any baggage. Such behaviour is very surprising as migrant workers always carry their bags and metal trunks for long journeys.
Coming down heavily on the State administration, Senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council, Pravin Darekar, in a Facebook post said that the Bandra incident is a failure of the Thackeray government. What were the Home Minister and the Intelligence department doing? he asked.
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