Around 350 Kashmiris including students who are stranded in Pakistan for the past more than two months would be evacuated later this month, authorities said on Tuesday.
J&K Chief Secretary BVR Subramanyam said efforts have been put in to evacuate all stranded residents from Pakistan. “All of them will be brought back safely,” he said.
Secretary Civil Aviation, M Raju said 348 people from J&K, including students and others were being evacuated.
“They will be evacuated on June 23,” he said. He said the J&K government has arranged 15 buses for return of these stranded persons. These stranded persons would be evacuated in the busses from Wagah border.
“Although Amritsar is under lockdown, we have worked hard to ensure that these people return to home districts and are quarantined there,” he said.
“No flights are operating from Amritsar to Srinagar currently. We don’t want to quarantine them in Amritsar,” he said.
Meanwhile, family members of the stranded passengers urged the government to ensure safe evacuation of the stranded passengers in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic.
A Srinagar resident, whose daughter was stranded in Pakistan, said he has been running from pillar to post to seek her evacuation.
“Unfortunately, our children had to wait this long to get back, although all the authorities needed was to allow them to walk to this side through Wagah,” he said.
He said his daughter has been studying in Pakistan and has been under “unimaginable distress” since the outbreak of COVID19.
“I request authorities to make arrangements for air travel of our children from Amritsar to ensure their safety,” he said.
The parent said the students had been communicated by Indian Consulate in Islamabad that their travel from Amritsar to Srinagar would be arranged by road.
A family member of another stranded Kashmiri said his mother had traveled to Pakistan to attend wedding of a relative, but was stranded there since March.
“She is not in good health and the Government must arrange a flight from Amritsar to Srinagar for which the passengers can pay themselves,” he said.
He expressed concern that the travel by road for days could expose the evacuees to COVID19. “Even if one person contracts infection, all of them will become vulnerable,” he said.