Despite the Kerala Government disapproving acts of targeting foreigners over the coronavirus scare, instances of the visitors being singled out and humiliated have surfaced in the State.
The latest incident was reported from Kannur where two tourists had to go without a morsel of food for four days after hotels allegedly refused to serve them any.
The foreigners - a man and and a woman - were seen crying out of hunger on the wayside by locals in Payyannur in north Kerala town of Kannur following which the police and local authorities extended them a helping hand. The French and Italian nationals later said they had reached Kannur on March 11 but had not got any food for the last four days and had been starving. They said they wandered here and there and knocked at the door of many hotels and restaurants for food but no one helped them. Seeing the plight of the visitors, police and Payyannur civic body authorities bought them food and shifted them to Thalassery taluk hospital.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also said foreigners should not be seen as a COVID-19 carriers and warned those who tease them. The tourists, who reached Kerala after visiting Mumbai, Goa and Madurai, had no symptom of the coronavirus, authorities said. While hotels and resorts are denying foreigners rooms, restaurants are reluctant to give them food in many places even in well-known tourist destinations. Local people even chased them away out of fear of the spread of the virus and tried to evict them forcefully from public buses, the visitors complained.
In another incident, a French couple, who reached Kannur from the highrange Wayand on a state-run KSRTC bus, had to face the wrath of co-passengers.