MANGALURU: No work, no money and no food. A construction labourer, who was stuck in Mangaluru due to the Covid Curfew, was forced to walk back home for 60 km on an empty stomach before any help came his way. Shiva, aged about 50, had gone hungry for two days. With no work or money in hand, he finally decided to set out on foot, a distance of 150 km.
After he had covered about 60 km, some police personnel spotted him in Puttur and helped him board a goods vehicle to reach his house at a village near Madikeri. The incident occurred on May 1 and was revealed to the media by Dakshina Kannada Superintendent of Police Rishikesh Sonawane on Monday.
According to head constable Dayanand, attached to the Puttur Rural Police Station, he and Home Guard Kiran were on duty at Santyaru checkpoint when some local reporters who had come there, drew their attention towards a man eating mangoes that had fallen from a tree nearby. When Dayanand approached Shiva, the latter told him that he had not eaten anything for the last two days and was on his way home at Ranipete near Madikeri.
The head constable said that Shiva, who works in construction sector, had landed in Mangaluru just five days earlier, but could not get a job due to Covid restrictions. “He said he hadn’t eaten anything for two days. The mangoes that he was eating were rotten and were half-eaten by birds,” said Dayanand. He then stopped a goods vehicle, laden with poultry feed, and requested the driver to drop him off in Madikeri after which Shiva reached his destination.