With a fresh wave of evacuations on Sunday, the number of Indians flown back by the Modi government from coronavirus-ravaged Iran rose to 3...
With a fresh wave of evacuations on Sunday, the number of Indians flown back by the Modi government from coronavirus-ravaged Iran rose to 336. But as many as 850 pilgrims from Kargil and 400 students from Kashmir still remain stranded in the country, phone interviews with some of them suggest.
Iran has seen the third-highest number of deaths in the coronavirus pandemic after China and Italy.
Stranded pilgrims from Ladakh’s Kargil district have been holding protests outside the Indian embassy in Tehran, asking to be evacuated. Families of the pilgrims, who have continually appealed to Indian authorities to bring them back, allege the government is not doing enough.
According to tests conducted by Indian doctors flown into Iran, several are infected by the virus. But no one has been quarantined or hospitalised, the pilgrims allege.
“Some 10 days ago, Indian doctors collected samples of around 250 pilgrims and sent them to India,” said 36-year-old Mohammad Imran, who is stranded in Qom. “The reports of these tests came some four days back and Indian embassy officials informed us that around 40-50 are positive. Yet, they didn’t make any efforts to hospitalise them and allowed them to live with all others.”
According to him, the pilgrims themselves took individuals who...
