A representative image: Migrant workers in Delhi. | Adnan Abidi/Reuters
For two years in a row, Covid-19 lockdowns have cost Santosh Das his job in Surat’s powerloom industry and forced him to return to his village in Odisha.
Both times, his journey home has been prefaced by death.
Last year, the man who died was another migrant worker from Odisha, who was beaten to death by the Surat police on May 14. He had been part of a group protest demanding police registration for tickets in the Shramik Special trains, so that desperate migrants stranded in the lockdown could return home. Das did not personally know him, but his death paved the way for his return.