Indian authorities said yesterday that police in western India fired tear gas, to disperse a crowd of migrant workers who were throwing stones, violated public isolation procedures and restrictions imposed for three weeks to contain the emerging coronavirus, and police arrested 93 of them for violating general isolation procedures.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ordered the citizens of India, which has a population of 1.3 billion, to stay in their homes until April 15th, saying that this was the only hope to limit the spread of the Corona virus, but the general isolation measures sparked a crisis, after hundreds of thousands sought Of the migrant workers in big cities, such as Delhi and Mumbai, to return on foot to their towns and villages in the countryside, after they lost their job.
Many days, some of them with their families, walked on the deserted highways, with little or no access to water or food, and the day before yesterday, about 500 workers clashed with the police in the city of Surat, demanding that they be allowed to return to their towns elsewhere in India after having They lost their work.
"The police tried to convince them that this was not possible, because buses and trains are not available, but the workers refused to comply, and they threw stones at the police," said Surat Deputy Police Commander, Fidhi Chaudhry.
And she continued: "The tear gas shots caused the workers, most of whom work in the textile sector in Surat, to hide."
Yesterday, the Indian Ministry of Health announced that the total number of HIV infections has increased to 1071, while the total number of deaths has reached 29.
Medical sector officials said that the movement of citizens on a large scale in the countryside threatens to spread the virus on a large scale, which increases the challenges to contain the outbreak in India, the world's second most populous country, while the federal government said it does not intend to extend the measures of public isolation beyond the three weeks.