Stuck in Bangladesh, Kashmiri students continue to demand evacuation

SRINAGAR — The Kashmiri students stuck in Bangladesh, amid the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of Coronavirus in the country, have been continuously making appeals to the Indian authorities for their evacuation.

As the authorities in Bangladesh extended the lockdown until May 05, the students have once again asked for their evacuation.

They appealed to both the Central government especially Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) as well as the authorities in the UT of J&K, asking for their immediate evacuation.

A girl student said, “Bangladesh is imposing a strict lockdown but we have to go outside to get things without which we can’t do. This exposes us to a lot of risk. It is unclear when will this end. If the situation goes out of control, who would help us here.”

Meanwhile, the students said that they are ready to be quarantined anywhere in J&K. “Please ask them (Indian authorities) to test us for COVID-19 and quarantine us for 20 days. But please evacuate us immediately,” another student said.

It is pertinent to mention that the South Asian nation of more than 165 million population has so far reported 131 deaths from the virus as of Wednesday, with 4,689 confirmed cases and 112 recoveries.

According to the official data, a total of 32,674 people have been tested as on Wednesday since the first coronavirus case was reported in the country on March 08.