26 Pilgrims from Assam's Baksa Stranded in Prayagraj amid Nationwide Lockdown

Baksa, March 30, 2020:

At a time when the entire world is struggling hard to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus or COVID-19, a team of pilgrims comprising several elderly persons from Assam finds itself trapped in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, amid the 21-day national lockdown in India.

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Now, 26 pilgrims who set out to different parts of the country on a teerth yatra, find themselves isolated in a tiny room in the town of Allahabad (officially known as Prayagraj). Now, videos of the elderly pilgrims exhorting the media to help relay their message seeking for the Government's help have reached Inside Northeast. The pilgrims set off from Tamulpur under Assam's Baksa district. "One 15 March we came in the Brahmaputra mail, and visited places such as Kashi, Vrindavan, Mathura, we visited these. We were to return on the 30th, but due to suspension of the train services, we are stuck here", said an elderly woman, who is one of the 26 stranded pilgrims.

https://www.facebook.com/ne.inside/videos/351776995770007/?t=0

The woman has also said that they are unable to maintain social distancing and are cooped up in a tiny room. Many, she says, are suffering from diarrhea and have fallen sick. Moreover, she informed, they have run out of their savings, and are surviving on a single meal a day. One woman informs that diarrhea will claim their lives, as the soaring heat in Uttar Pradesh is causing many of them, including a 9-year-old child, to fall sick. "Not coronavirus, but diarrhea, will kill ones of us", rues the woman.

The pilgrims have exhorted Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and the Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to see to it that they are able to return to their hometowns amid the crisis of the lockdown that has put life in the entire country to a complete and utter halt.

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The lockdown, called abruptly and without any prior warning, has raised concerns over the trauma faced by people across the country who find themselves trapped in other countries. The Northeast Indians trapped in other parts have been trying desperately to draw the Government’s notice towards their plight. This includes people from all parts of the 8 States who now find themselves stranded in other parts, and some of them are being subjected to "racism" and teased mercilessly as "corona" due to their mongoloid features.

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