97 died on Shramik trains, admits government

New Delhi: The government has informed the Rajya Sabha that 97 persons died on board the Shramik Specials, admitting for the first time that migrant workers lost their lives on trains which were run to ferry them during the lockdown.

In a written answer to a question posed by TMC’s Derek O'Brien, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal provided the statistics to the Upper House. He said based on the data provided by the state police, 97 persons were reported dead till September 9 while travelling on board Shramik Special trains. The postmortem reports in 51 cases had been obtained. PTI