Afroz Shah, a lawyer, and an environmental activist, was allegedly detained on Tuesday night by Tilak Nagar police for two hours for allegedly ferrying stranded migrants to their destination in Mumbai.

Shah is internationally known for his efforts in organizing the world's largest beach clean-up project in Versova Beach, Mumbai, inspiring people around the world to clean up their environment. For his beach cleaning efforts, he earned the title Champion of the Earth. It also inspired the United Nations Environment Program, or UNEP, to launch the Clean Seas campaign around the world.

He has been giving the stranded migrants juice, water, and food and making the necessary arrangements for the worker's transportation to alleviate the distance that workers have to walk amidst the scorching heat.

According to Shah, he was ferrying migrants who were walking for a distance of 16 kilometers from Byculla to Ghatkopar to get a bus when the police detained him. The police were abusive, and they bullied him, Shah said.

He asked the police to register the first information report or FIR, but the police allegedly failed to do. They detained him for two hours instead. After two hours, the police asked him to accompany them to drop off the migrants and then asked him to leave.

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Shah posted on Twitter about his detention and expressed that he is suspending all efforts for the poor.

Shah said there is a huge humanitarian crisis in India, and if the government is not doing anything about it, then citizens should help. He added that despite his mother's warning that he is putting himself into risk. He feels a need to help his fellow citizens. For now, he said he is forced to suspend his efforts.

The Exodus of Migrant Workers in India

The migrant workers that Shah has been helping are walking home from major cities to their respective home villages for hundreds or thousands of miles since the lockdown in March.

In efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus, India's central government imposed a nationwide lockdown and closed businesses. After the announcement of the lockdown on March 24, industrial units and construction activities all over India shut down, rendering millions of workers jobless and homeless.

According to experts, approximately 3 million migrant workers are returning from major cities to their home villages. The public transportation was shut down, forcing the migrants to walk hundreds of miles to get to their home villages, with some dying along the way.

Special trains have been provided by the government from different parts of the countries to ferry the workers home, but due to the number of migrants, it could not accommodate everyone.

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In a recent report from Arabnews, experts predict a dramatic increase of COVID-19 cases, which may be from the returning migrant workers from major cities.

Analysts have been criticizing the way the government is imposing the lockdown, saying that it is an unplanned, hurried exercise. This exodus, according to a Delhi-based NGO Ajeevika Bureau, is an "unprecedented situation and humanitarian crisis of great magnitude."