Government in talks with Iran to evacuate 2,000 stranded Indians

Before returning, the stranded Indians will have to undergo medical screening

India is in talks with the Iranian government to evacuate about 2,000 Indians stranded in Tehran, most of whom were in the country to undertake a pilgrimage.

However, before returning to their homeland, the stranded Indian nationals will have to undergo medical screening for COVID-19 and will be declared fit to travel only after clearing the tests, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said here on Friday.

A team of medical experts from the Delhi has already reached Tehran to set up camps to screen Indian nationals and an aircraft carrying their blood samples for virology tests in Indian laboratories is expected to reach here Friday night.

“We have given clearance to Mahan Air to operate one ferry flight to bring back Iranian nationals stranded in India. The ferry flight will bring along swabs of 300 Indians stranded in Iran,” Director General Civil Aviation Arun Kumar told reporters here.

He said evacuation of Indian nationals stranded in Iran would commence after receiving the medical reports on the swabs that are expected to reach the national capital on Friday night.

The DGCA said the Iranian aircraft will be fully fumigated and disinfected through a process that would take two to three hours.

Commercial airlines operate six flights between India and Iran every week. However, since the outbreak of COVID-19 was reported in Iran, India suspended all flights coming from or going to the Persian country, leading to stranded passengers in both countries.

Briefing mediapersons on the steps taken by the Civil Aviation Ministry, Puri said India has started screening all international arriving passengers across 30 airports in the country.

As of Thursday, a total of 6.5 lakh passengers arriving on 6551 international flights have been screened at airports across the country since January 18 of which 84 were referred for complete medical tests.

There have been 31 confirmed patients of COVID-19 in India, of which three have been cured and discharged from hospital.

Puri also said that Wings India 2020, a marquee conference of the aviation sector scheduled for March 12-15 in Hyderabad would be truncated because of the outbreak.