Four migrants died on Tuesday in separate accidents as they resort to desperate means to reach home amidst the lockdown imposed to curb the Coronavirus pandemic.

Four migrant labourers — one in Haryana and three in Uttar Pradesh — were killed in road accidents today.

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A migrant labourer was killed, while another was seriously injured after being hit by a car on the Ambala-Jagadhri highway near the Ambala Cantonment early on Tuesday, police said. The driver of the vehicle is at large.

The Haryana incident reportedly occurred when a group of migrants were on their way to their village in Bihar from Ludhiana on foot. According to one of the labourers, they decided to walk back home since they were not able to register themselves for boarding one of the ‘shramik’ trains being run to transport migrants, PTI reported.

According to a report in NDTV, a woman and her daughter were killed in a truck accident in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur, while a 25-year-old was killed while on his way to Bihar on a cycle in Raebareli.

Two more migrants were killed yesterday on their way home to Uttar Pradesh from Telangana after a truck they had taken a ride in for a break from walking overturned in Gorakhpur district.

At least six migrant labourer were killed and 14 others injured when a truck in which they were travelling overturned in Madhya Pradesh’s Narsinghpur district on Saturday night.

The labourers were going in the truck laden with mangoes to Jhansi, Etah and Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh from Hyderabad, police said.

The incident came close on the heels of 16 migrant workers, who were sleeping on rail tracks while returning to Madhya Pradesh, being crushed to death by a goods train in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra.

Amid the nationwide lockdown, thousands of daily wagers and other migrants undertook epic journeys to reach home — walking, cycling and hitching rides when they could — in the absence of any public transport, the outskirts of many cities like Delhi and Mumbai teemed with people.

The nationwide lockdown, which began on March 25, was first extended till April 14, then till May 3 and finally till May 17 with a few relaxations built in. The unprecedented move to stem the spread of COVID-19 triggered possibly the biggest movement of people since Partition.

Some made it, some are still on their way while some others just gave up on the way. There have been several reports of workers desperate to be with their families in the uncertain days of a pandemic but dying before they reached their destination.

Despite the Centre allowing special trains for stranded migrants who wish to return to their native places, the sheer numbers are overwhelming and many of them are taking the unofficial route of private vehicles or are trekking for hundreds of kilometres in the summer heat. Some states have also been blamed of not facilitating the return of migrants by delaying permission for such trains.

The opposition Congress asked the Government to show more empathy to migrant workers and protect them during the crisis, saying what is happening to them is “perhaps the greatest human tragedy of our times”.