As many as 169 students stranded in various medical colleges in Bangladesh arrived in the valley on Wednesday afternoon. Later they were shifted to their respective districts for 14-day administrative quarantine.
Earlier, a group of 169 students from Dhaka, Bangladesh hadarrived on Tuesday while as the first batch of 168 students had landed in theValley on last Friday. The flights were arranged by the Government of India(GoI) amid the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.
“All the students who arrived from Dhaka, Bangladesh, werereceived under due observance of necessary protocol. The students were properlyscreened and their samples were collected for COVID-19 testing after theirarrival in Valley,” an official said.
With the return of the 506 medical students from Bangladeshin three flights till today, around 230-240 students are still left behindwhose names were not enlisted by the embassy for their evacuation. Theseinclude 72 students of community based medical college Bangladesh, over 90students of Kumudini Womens Medical College Bangladesh and dozens of studentsfrom other medical colleges as well.
However, principal secretary and government spokesperson,Rohit Kansal said all the students left behind at Bangladesh will be evacuatedas well. “Those still in Bangladesh need not worry. There will be yet anotherflight,” he said.
As already reported, J&K Chief Secretary, B V RSubrahmanyam has written to the foreign secretary GoI and urged him that the leftout students may be evacuated in a single flight-aircraft with a capacity of250 persons.
The GoI has launched ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ to evacuatepersons stranded in different countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic andfacilitate their movement by air and sea.
Meanwhile, the people stranded in different states arereturning through trains and buses. The train facility for stranded people isprovided up to Udhampur. Their evacuation is facilitated by the statesconcerned in collaboration with the J&K administration.
In past few days, three trains including one each fromBangalore, Goa and Delhi arrived Udhampur with stranded passengers includingmostly students and labourers. Another train which has already departed fromGoa is likely to arrive at Udhampur on Thursday.
“Around 1000 stranded passengers were evacuated fromBangalore, over 800 people were evacuated from Goa in first train while as 1168stranded people arrived in train from Delhi at Udhampur on Wednesday morning,”the official said.
He said the people who arrived from Delhi were dispatched totheir respective districts in SRTC buses. “Most of the passengers who arrivedfrom Delhi belong to Kulgam and Ramban district,” he said.
The official said the second special train is scheduled todepart from Bangalore on Thursday with 1680 stranded persons.
Meanwhile, as per the figures produced by the Directorate ofInformation and Public Relation (DIPR), the government has evacuated 39825J&K inhabitants through Lakhanpur till Wednesday while as 3217 people havereached Udhampur through special trains from Karnataka, Goa Delhi.