India News | Special Flight Carrying 180 Migrants from Mumbai Lands in Lucknow

Lucknow June 11 (PTI) A special flight arranged by actor Amitabh Bachchan to ferry 180 migrants from Mumbai landed at the airport here on Thursday morning.

On arrival, the migrants hailing from Unnao, Gonda, Lucknow and other districts of the state thanked the Bollywood star for helping them reach home.

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Airport Director, AK Sharma, said 180 passengers have arrived by the special flight.

Stepping in to help stranded migrants reach their villages, Bachchan had arranged for four special flights to send about 700 people to their homes in Uttar Pradesh.        Sources close to Bachchan had said that he wanted to book a train for the migrants but the logistics did not work out.

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The flights were “organised” on Bachchan's directive by his close aide Rajesh Yadav, managing director of his home production company AB Corp Ltd. They took off from Mumbai for Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Varanasi on Wednesday morning with 180 passengers in each, the sources had said.

Yadav, on Bachchan's behalf, had also recently flagged off 10 buses for 300 migrants to reach their villages in Lucknow, Allahabad, Bhadohi and other places in Uttar Pradesh. This was done in partnership with the dargahs in Mahim and the Haji Ali, a statement said.

 The coronavirus-triggered lockdown, which began on March 25, left lakhs of migrants stranded in different parts of the country. With no money and no work, many walked, cycled or hitchhiked their way to villages hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres away.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)