Azamgarh: Once famous for its Banarasi sarees – Mubarakpur in Uttar Pradesh has got a new identity as a coronavirus hotspot, making lives difficult for the town's weavers and their families.
Looms here were shut since March 22 to check the spread of coronavirus, however, after COVID-19 cases were found in Chaksikathi locality an April 11, the entire town was sealed, a weaver said.
Left with no means to earn a livelihood, thousands of weavers are scraping the bottom of the barrel as their meagre savings have almost exhausted. "Fights are increasing as people are getting frustrated.
Businessmen are taking sarees from us without paying... The businessmen are happy but weavers are not," Javed, a local weaver, said in a video that he recently