Div Com to take up matter with Resident Commissioner J&K
Suhail Khan
JODHPUR, April 7: Over 200 J&K residents including students and the pilgrims who were evacuated by the government of India from Iran on March 17 are stranded in an army wellness centre in Rajasthan, even after being declared negative for COVID-19 and completing the mandatory quarantine period.
Few families and some of their marooned children talked to Kashmir Despatch, pleading for help in facilitating their immediate return to homes in Jammu and Kashmir. “Ours was a batch of 195 people who left Iran on March 17 from Mahan Air flight number 0071 and we reached New Delhi on the afternoon of March 18. From Delhi we were airlifted by Air India flight AI6421 to Jaisalmer Rajasthan where we were kept at army wellness center of the Military Police Cantonment at 8 pm on the same day,” a stranded student in this center told Kashmir Despatch, on phone.
He said that their quarantine period was supposed to end on 1st of April and they were even tested for COVID on 31st of March. Some parents who talked to the Kashmir Despatch, said that the officials concerned in the quarantine facility at Jaisalmer have unofficially declared all of their stranded children as negative for COVID.
“However the administration took the four individuals from the army wellness centre for testing who later returned saying that they were declared negative. One of these four cases was from Ladakh and another was from Hyderabad. But both of them were later declared as negative. These suspected cases were re-tested but the results came negative again. Worst scenario is that until April 5th, students were not segregated from pilgrims and now three clusters have been formed to maintain social distancing norms,” one of the students told Kashmir Despatch on phone.
Another students recalling the ordeal, said that the authorities at the quarantine facility counted their second quarantine period from yesterday night. “They were told that after the second quarantine period ends, if there is even one positive case, the whole cluster has to stay back for another two weeks. There are 37 students and around 30-35 pilgrims at that quarantine facility,” a parent told Kashmir Despatch, pleading for evacuation of their children at an earliest.
Pertinently, some of the parents has staged a protest demonstration last week at Press Enclave Srinagar and demanded early return of their children from different parts of the country.
The protesting parents had said that the families whose children are stranded in different quarantine facilities across the country are in panic. “They don’t have enough money for sustenance. It is very difficult for these students especially girls to remain in such hostile conditions where they have no extra clothes available and are supposed to share the same washroom with everyone,” a parent of a girl student from Srinagar told Kashmir Despatch.
A senior officer in the office of divisional commissioner Kashmir told Kashmir Despatch that they are in the process of writing to resident commissioner J&K who stays in New Delhi to take up the matter with the respective authorities. “Since the divisional commissioner Kashmir was extremely busy in official meetings through video conferencing on COVID we could not send the letter to the resident commissioner today. I think by tomorrow we will send the letter to him and he will accordingly take up the issue with Rajasthan government,” he told Kashmir Despatch, pleading anonymity.
He however, confirmed to Kashmir Despatch that some of the parents whose children are stranded in Jaisalmer quarantine centre had approached divisional commissioner office with the request to facilitate their safe return.
