Police contest claim they sold off bicycles of workers for Rs 500 each

A viral video clip shows a policeman in uniform confirming that as many as 10 bicycles of migrant workers were sold for a paltry six thousand rupees on instructions of the SHO. The minute long conversation indicates that the bicycles belonged to migrant workers, who had arrived from Uttarakhand and were quarantined by the police.

The clip or the conversation do not clarify if the workers continue to be in quarantine or if they have left. Sources claimed that the bicycles were in the custody of police but the SHO ordered them to be sold off.

In the conversation a voice is heard exclaiming that six hundred rupees for a bicycle was too little because each bicycle would have cost a minimum of Rupees four thousand to four thousand and five hundred. The man in uniform explains that the buyers were also poor villagers and were in no position to pay more than five hundred Rupees each.

Some sources claimed that the workers were forced to leave their bicycled behind and get into buses, which took them away.

The video clip was apparently made by the correspondent of a local newspaper. Samajwadi Party’s secretary Manish Jagan Agarwal pointed out that thousands of workers had entered the state on bicycles. While the state government claims buses were mobilised to send the workers home to their villages, it should also clarify what happened to their bicycles. Similar complaints have been received from elsewhere in the state too, Agarwal claimed.

SP of Muzaffarnagar (Rural or Dehat) Nepal Singh confirmed that an inquiry is on. The local Circle officer Ram Nivas Sharma however is said to have contested the video and claimed that the reality is different. He also threatened to take action against the newspaper correspondent for making a fake video.

The video was reportedly shot in the campus of Swami Kalyan Dev college, where migrant workers were detained. Bhopa Police Station in charge Sanjeev Kumar claimed ignorance. Even the SDM at Jansath Kuldeep Meena described the clip to be baseless. He said that while 26 workers were sent to Bihar in a bus, only three of them had bicycles and were insisting on resuming their journey on their bicycles.

While it is not clear why the bicycles couldn’t be put on the roof of the bus, there is outrage over the clip. Workers and their wives had sold whatever they had to buy the bicycles, it is being pointed out.