J&K Govt begins evacuation, brings back 1,200 stranded residents
The Jammu and Kashmir Government on Monday finally began the process of bringing back its residents stranded in Pathankot and adjoining areas.
As many as 1,211 people, who were stranded in Pathankot district of Punjab due to the imposition of lockdown, were brought to Lakhanpur in the Punjab Roadways buses on Monday. All of them have completed 21 days of quarantine in Pathankot.
The Pathankot administration handed over the people to the Kathua district administration at Lakhanpur, where they were asked to pass through the sanitisation tunnel after which that they were asked to stand in a queue by maintaining social distancing.
“A total of 350 people in today’s batch belong to Kashmir. Most of them are from Kupwara district while the rest belong to the Jammu division. Over 300 people belong to Kathua. After their medical verification, they will be sent to home quarantine,” said OP Bhagat, District Magistrate, Kathua.
Commissioner Secretary Ajeet Kumar Sahu, who is the overall in charge of the arrangements at Lakhanpur, has meticulously enforced the lockdown guidelines in the area to ensure there is no unchecked inward or outward movement except for the essential and medical services.
The Tribune has prominently highlighted the issue of the stranded residents. In today’s edition, the newspaper described the prolonged stranding of the people outside J&K as a ‘humanitarian crisis’.
TNS
