30 students, labourers flee from Akola shelter home

They ran away around 3.30 am on Wednesday. The police are looking for them,” Akola Collector Jitendra Papalkar said. (Representational Photo)

THIRTY persons, comprising students and labourers, who were staying in a shelter at Patur town in Akola district in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown, escaped in the early hours of Wednesday.

Akola Collector Jitendra Papalkar confirmed the incident in a video message. “The group comprised students and labourers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, who had been kept at the Patur shelter home. They ran away around 3.30 am on Wednesday. The police are looking for them,” he said.

“They were intercepted at our state’s border, while they were trying to go back to their states in a container, at Patur immediately after the lockdown was announced, and were brought to the shelter home. But they had not been cooperating and were constantly demanding that they be allowed to go back to their homes. We counseled them and said they would be allowed to go at an appropriate time.

But after the lockdown was extended, they again refused to cooperate, before fleeing on Wednesday,” Papalkar told The Indian Express.