Watchman Mohammad Arif, 35, is unwell, hungry and exhausted but has been cycling relentlessly since Thursday morning, headed from Mumbai to his home in Jammu’s Rajouri district, about 2,100km away.

He wants to see his ailing father Wazir Hussain, who suffered a massive stroke on Wednesday.

As soon as Arif received the news on Thursday morning, he rented a bicycle from a migrant labourer in Mumbai, paying him Rs 500, and set off.

The Telegraph spoke to him over the phone late on Friday afternoon when he was resting under the shade of a tree near the Gujarat border. He had covered nearly 300km in a day and a half.

“I’m unwell and fainted because of the blistering heat. I decided to rest for a couple of hours as I had no energy left. I have eaten nothing today. I had a piece of bread that I ate yesterday,” Arif sobbed.

“This lockdown is giving me so much pain. There’s no help coming from any side.”

But he was determined to soldier on. “Whatever happens to me I will not rest till I have met my father. I don’t know whether he will survive. I’m praying he does. My mother died many years ago and there’s nobody at home to take care of my father.”

Arif’s three children live with his estranged wife. His father, Hussain, lives alone in a ramshackle, one-room tenement in Gambir Brahmana village, some 10km from Rajouri town.

The watchman’s cousin Mehmood, who lives in the same village, said Hussain had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was initially admitted to a hospital.

“We spent a night at the Rajouri hospital but in the morning the doctors asked us to take my uncle home. I don’t know why (they said so). He is not improving. He is bedridden, cannot move his limbs and only occasionally opens his eyes,” Mehmood said. He pleaded: “We are poor people. Please arrange a vehicle for my cousin so that he can reach home and see his father.”

Mehmood said Rajouri was under a complete lockdown, so much so that he found it difficult to shuttle between his home and that of his uncle, just 100 metres away.

“Nobody is coming to help us because of the coronavirus scare and the lockdown. I wish my cousin arrives soon and takes care of his father,” he said.

Arif said he had set off with a blanket, a piece of bread, a bottle of water and a few hundred rupees.

He had bicycled the whole of Thursday and spent the night on the roadside.

“I wasn’t stopped (by police) but nobody offered me any help, either. Last (Thursday) night, I approached the police for help but they brushed me off. I had to sleep on the roadside,” he said.

Arif said he saw several vehicles whizz past him but none would give him a lift. “I don’t need any help other than a lift. I’m exhausted and there’s still a long way to go,” he said.

Arif said it would take him at least 10 days to reach home – provided the bicycle lasted the distance — if he didn’t get a lift.

The Rajouri resident had moved to Mumbai a few months ago after returning from the Gulf, where he worked as a driver. He had met with an accident there and was jailed as he had no documents.