Amid lockdown, ailing Tripura families' tricky expedition from Chennai

Five people, including two ailing women, from two families reached Tripura from Chennai by road in an ambulance, travelling over 3,700 km amid the nationwide lockdown in place to check the spread of coronavirus.

Former Deputy Director of Tripura government, Chanchal Majumder, along with his wife Asima Biswas and Sukumar Bhowmik, a police officer, accompanied by his wife Nandini Bhowmik and a relative went to Tamil Nadu on March 20 for their wives' treatment at a private hospital in Chennai.

"Two days before the lockdown started on March 25, we completed the treatment. But we were stranded in Chennai when after Kolkata-bound flight got cancelled," Majumder told IANS on Monday over phone from a quarantine centre in Udaipur in Gomati district headquarters.

He said: "As my only daughter's marriage is scheduled on May 8 and after finding no other alternatives, we, the two families, hired an ambulance at a charge of over Rs one lakh. After spending over Rs 1.40 lakh, we left Chenai on April 15 and reached Agartala after Sunday midnight."

As per the health protocols in place for the coronavirus pandemic, Majumder and his wife are now under institutional quarantine in Udaipur in southern Tripura, while the Bhowmik family has been kept in home quarantine at Mohanpur in western Tripura.

Majumder said that during their five-day trip from Chennai to Tripura, they underwent medical screening at more than 10 inter-state borders and security checks at more than 50 places.

"Police, medical and civil officials and common people cooperated with us a lot and provided various aids when we passed through the roads of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha , Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal (twice), Assam (twice) and Meghalaya before finally reaching Tripura," he said.

The ex-Tripura government official said that during their journey through the 9-10 states, they witnessed that thousands of people from Tripura and other northeastern states, who went to various states for numerous reasons, were stranded in different states.

"Many of the stranded people are in distress as they don't have sufficient money, proper accommodation and food," he pointed out. IANS