Amitabh Bachchan arranges for four flights to take migrants from Mumbai to UP

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

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 said. Two more flights with the workers will take off on Thursday.

According to the reports, Bachchan made sure everything was done with utmost discretion as the star didn't want any publicity for this.

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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 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.

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(with PTI inputs)