As his father's health worsened, Mohammad Shamshad, 28, made all efforts to rush back to his village in Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh. But he found all roads that could take him home blocked at the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. Sitting under a flyover on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border on Wednesday afternoon, Shamshad broke down after he received a call from his mother and sister-in-law that his father was no more.
Working as a weaver in an export company in Haryana, Shamshad received a call from his mother two days back, informing him his father was critical. She asked him to rush back home. His 65-year-old father Mohammad Salaam had been an asthma patient.
Shamshad immediately left his house in Kapashera area in southwest Delhi with his wife and four-year-old son early morning in a rented car. When he reached the Anand Vihar Interstate Bus Terminal, the police stopped him and asked him to go back. I pleaded before them to allow me to go, but they did not relent, he said over the phone as he was travelling in a Shramik Special train.
The police have been stopping the movement of migrant workers on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border as thousands have been making efforts to go back to their villages and towns. Undeterred, he tried to cross over to the other side again, but this time with the help of an auto driver, who charged him Rs 50 per person for the ride.
But he and his family were dropped under the flyover and not in Ghaziabad. Helpless, he ran helter-skelter, pleading before people to help so that he can at least attend his father's funeral. By then his plight had been captured by the media. Shamshad and his family later went to Ghaziabad bus stand from where buses were picking up migrant labourers who were to be ferried to the Ghaziabad Railway station.
By evening, he managed to board a Sharmik train that could drop him to Hardoi. "I can now at least the last rites of my father," he said.
