Opposition parties on Monday came down heavily on the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh after migrants who were returning to their homes were disinfected by a team on sanitising duty at the Bareilly bus stand. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the act was inhuman and urged the Yogi Adityanath government to deal with people who are already in trouble due to the lockdown in a more humane way.

“I request the UP government that as all collectively fight this disaster, but please do not indulge in such inhuman work. The workers have already suffered a lot. Do not bathe them like this by adding chemicals. This will not protect them but will create more threats to their health,” she tweeted in Hindi.

Former Uttar Pradesh CM and Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav too slammed the government and sought to know whether this was done at the behest of the government. “Some questions arose from chemical spraying done for sanitization of passengers: are there instructions from the World Health Organization for this? What is the treatment for chemical burns? What is the arrangement for changing the clothes of wet people? What is the alternative arrangement for soaked food items?”

In a shocking incident, a video showed migrants who were returning to their homes in Uttar Pradesh made to sit at the Bareilly bus stand and sprayed with chemical to disinfect them. The video of the incident has now gone viral on the internet, inviting criticism from the public and opposition leaders.

According to reports, the migrants had walked down from Noida and Delhi. They were told to sit at the bus stand by officials and promised that they will be taken on buses and will be given food. However, the sanitising team sprayed the group with a diluted mixture of sodium hypochlorite. The group of 50 people, including women and children.