Pune Woman Rides Two-Wheeler For 18 Hours To Bring Son Home Amid Lockdown

A disabled woman travelled 1,200 km from Pune to Amravati in Maharashtra on a two-wheeler to bring back her 14-year-old son home amid the coronavirus lockdown.

An accountant with a private firm, 37-year-old disabled woman Sonu Khandare rode her scooter for 18 hours to bring her son home from a village in Amravati district.

"My son Prateek had gone to my in-laws' place at a village in Anjangaon Surji tehsil on March 17 and was stuck there after the lockdown was announced on March 22," Ms Khandare said.

The Khandare couple was initially not worried about the boy's well-being, but when the lockdown was extended further till May 4, they got restless.

Ms Khandare approached district authorities, applied for a travel pass online and even considered hiring a car for the journey, which would have cost her around Rs 8,000.

She then went to the police commissioner's office to get special permission.

"When I was granted a travel pass for 48 hours on April 24, I just headed home, packed some food and water and left on my two-wheeler without thinking twice," the woman said.

"I kept riding my two-wheeler even at night, with no light except the dim one coming from the headlight and to make things worse, I was stopped and questioned at every check-post along the way," she said.

Ms Khandare managed to make a pitstop at a petrol pump along the highway near Khamgaon, where she slept on the sidewalk.

"When I noticed the CCTV cameras near the petrol pump, I decided to rest there on the open ground, as I believed that if anything were to happen to me, it will be recorded," she said.

Ms Khandare made an early start on April 25 and reached her in-laws home in the afternoon.

"I hardly spent a couple of hours there, as I kept thinking about getting back home safely, before my travel pass expired," said the mother of three, who had to tackle dehydration and hunger, apart from the rough terrain and potholed roads.

Ms Khandare managed to reach her home in Bhosari area of Pune, with limited stops, at around 11 pm on April 26, just an hour before her travel pass expired.

"My son and I immediately rushed to the hospital to check if we needed to be quarantined, as we had travelled," she said, adding that doctors only advised her home quarantine for 14 days and bed rest.