SDPI registers deep condolence at the death of Mohan Paswan from Bihar. Mohan Paswan is known to the world through his teenage daughter Jyoti Kumari, known as the ‘Cycle Girl.’ Jyoti Kumari’s adventurous and gallant effort of pillion riding her ailing father Paswan on a bicycle nearly 1,200km from Haryana’s Gurugram to Bihar’s Darbhanga during the first phase of the ill-planned nationwide lockdown shot both of them to international attention.
Jyoti Kumari, member of a migrant labourer family was left with no choices to reach her native place in Bihar with her ailing father from the place of their labour in Haryana, following the 24-hours’ notice of nation-wide lockdown announced by the Union government without arranging any means to take the migrant labourers to their native places. The unfortune and hapless labourers who didn’t enjoy any sort of privileges of high caste, wealth or political clout had to traverse thousands of kilometres on foot with their paraphernalia, kin and kids. Many of them fell down dying on the streets on their way back home, many were killed run over by train and heavy vehicles, and many died starving during the first phase of the lockdown imposed without any planning.
Mohan Paswan, though not a direct victim of the lockdown, will remain in the hearts of humane people for ever in the name of his daughter Jyoti Kumari who at her tender age was forced to take on the huge challenge of taking her father safe home riding a bicycle around 1,200 kilometres; an inevitability brought about by the mismanagement of the pandemic situation by a utter-failure sanghi government.
May Paswan rest in peace and his family have the strength to withstand his bereavement.
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