Back in India, but 37 from Uttar Pradesh have to wait for going home

GHAZIABAD: Twenty one-year-old Chaitanya Sahu, a student from Lucknow, heaved a sigh of relief when his Air India flight from Dhaka touched down at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Saturday afternoon. He was among 129 Indian nationals stranded in Dhaka due to Covid-19 lockdown who were evacuated by the Union government under the Vande Bharat Mission.
“I am so relieved to be back in my country. I was in Dhaka for the past three months where I had gone on a student exchange programme. And just when I was planning to return, travel restrictions were put in place due to coronavirus outbreak,” said Sahu.
Like Sahu, his friend Rishi Raj from Shahjahanpur is also a happy man.
“It was such a proud moment for us when Air India plane left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, there were over 120 passengers and all of us broke into laughter,” said Raj, a student who had also gone to Dhaka on a student exchange programme.
But both Sahu and Raj will have to wait for another 14 days before they could actually get back home.
They, along with 35 others from UP’s different districts, will be placed under a two week quarantine at a Ghaziabad hotel. Of the 37, five are from Ghaziabad, three from Noida and the remaining from Lucknow, Agra, Moradabad, Pilibhit and other districts.
PN Dixit, an official of the district administration who had gone to IGI airport to receive those from UP, said, “All the 129 passengers were screened after they deboarded from the flight and from there 37 were ferried on a bus to Ghaziabad, where they have been placed under quarantine at Hotel Elite in Bajaria area. After the 14-day quarantine, they will be sent to their home districts.”
When contacted, Ghaziabad district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said, “We had made arrangements for all 37 in hotels and in government quarantine centres but all of them opted to stay at the hotel.”