Boy Sprayed With Bleach Meant To Disinfect Buses, UP Government Explains

Coronavirus: A boy outside Lucknow station was sprayed, "unintentionally", with a bleach solution

A young boy outside Lucknow's Charbagh Railway Station recoils as a municipal worker in protective gear sprays him with a bleach-and-water disinfectant. "He will get wet," a woman standing nearby, presumably a relative, shouts, as a family squatting on a roadside divider watches on, astounded.

This six-second mobile phone clip, shot on Wednesday, has drawn outrage and comparisons to a similar incident at the beginning of India's coronavirus lockdown, when migrant workers in western Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly district, returning home via special buses arranged by the state, were sprayed with the same kind of solution to "disinfect" them.

A bleach-and-water solution is meant only for surface disinfection and is not to be used on human beings.

A top official of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation, in-charge of disinfecting government buses transporting migrants brought to the state on "shramik (worker) trains, has responded to this latest shocking incident by saying the spraying of the boy had been "unintentional".

"The process of sanitisation of buses was on. The hosepipe was full and when our workers were moving from one bus to the other, some labourers came in the way. It was unintentional," Indramani Tripathi, the Lucknow Municipal Commissioner, explained.

"The corporation has been sanitising buses for a month and no such incident has been reported. We have removed the two workers involved because, while unintentional, they certainly made a mistake," he added.

Migrants were sprayed with a bleach-and-water solution in UP's Bareilly in March

The boy who was sprayed with the disinfectant has not been identified. However, sources said his family and he had arrived on a train that brought migrants stranded across the country to the Uttar Pradesh capital.

After a similar episode in Bareilly in March, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said such incidents should not be repeated.

"Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has condemned the Bareilly incident where officials sprayed disinfectant on migrant workers and has ordered action against them. He also asked (officials) to ensure such incidents do not repeat," Awanish Awasthi, a senior state government official, said at the time.

Uttar Pradesh has reported nearly 3,000 novel coronavirus cases so far, with 60 deaths linked to the virus. Across India the number of COVID-19 cases has crossed 50,000, with 1,783 deaths reported.