179 migrants stranded in Karnataka flown back to Chhattisgarh

    Raipur, Jun 4 (PTI) As many as 179 migrants, stranded
in Karnataka due to lockdown, returned to Chhattisgarh on
Thursday from Bengaluru by a flight arranged by the alumni of
the National Law School of India University (NLSIU).
    The Indigo flight carrying 179 passengers including
women and children took off from Bengaluru around 8 am and
landed at Swami Vivekanand Airport here around 10 am, an
airport official here told PTI.
    A few civil society organisations in Chhattisgarh
decided to bring back by flight over 350 migrant workers from
Karnataka and contacted alumni of the NLSIU and National
Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad,
said Vinaysheel, who coordinated the effort.
     Alumni of the NLSUI paid for air travel of 179
passengers who landed here on Thursday while the travel cost
of other 174 migrants, scheduled to land here from Bengaluru
on June 5, was being footed by alumni of NALSAR, he said.
    Returning migrants looked relaxed and happy. For
almost all of them, it was their first experience of air
travel.
    "I am happy to have come back safely. I am thankful to
all those who helped us return," said Rajni Chandra (28) who
was carrying her two-year-old child in her arms.
    Chandra, who worked as a labourer at a construction
site in Karnataka, was stuck there after lockdown was imposed
in March to contain coronavirus.
    She was a bit jittery as she was traveling by aircraft
for the first time, but the journey will remain etched in her
memory forever, she said.
    The Raipur district administration made arrangement
for medical screening of arriving migrants at the airport and
provided buses to ferry them to their respective districts,
said a local official.
    The passengers will be quarantined after they reach
their home districts, he said. PTI TKP
KRK KRK

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)