'Beaten For Looking for Food,' Jaipur's Muslim Migrant Workers Agitate to Go Home

'More than 10,000 Muslim migrant workers from Bihar and West Bengal residing at Painters’ Colony in Jaipur’s Nahri ka Naka area, who have only been given dry ration packets since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 25, took to the streets on Sunday asking to be sent back home. They claimed that only around 400 packets, each containing a total of seven kilograms of flour, pulses, rice and salt, was distributed among 10,000 people last month. This, too, only came after volunteers of the CPI(ML), CPM and CPI in the area intervened. The Left parties had started a helpline, “Samarth,” in the city, from the first day of the lockdown... Protesting on the street occurred to them as the last option to compel the authorities to take notice of their condition... “Each time we try to come out on the street looking for food, police deployed in the area beat us with their lathis,” he added...'