A burden too heavy
Down To Earth|June 01, 2020
Social worker Abul Kalam Azad saves a newborn when an exhausted and hungry migrant worker abandoned him along the road
SNIGDHA DAS
A burden too heavy

IN THE 30 years of my career, I have not seen anything as heart-wrenching as this,” says Abul Kalam Azad, a social worker who works with the economically backward tribal communities of Sundargarh district in Odisha. On May 16, a migrant worker walking to her village in Maharashtra’s Ankola district amid the COVID-19 lockdown delivered a child on the roadside and then abandoned him, so that she could continue her arduous journey home, with one less burden.

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