India ready to bring back neighbouring citizens from Wuhan: Govt

Two Union Ministers on Friday informed the Parliament that India was ready to bring back the citizens of its neighbouring nations in south-east Asia from the novel-coronavirus hit Wuhan in China and allow its testing laboratories to examine the samples received from such countries.

“We were prepared to bring back not only our people but also those from all our neighbourhood who would have liked to. This was an offer which was made to all our neighbours but only seven nationals of Maldives chose to avail the offer,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in the Rajya Sabha.

The Maldivians were part of the second batch of evacuees from Wuhan along with 323 Indian nationals who were ferried from the communist country last week. In two batches 647 Indians were brought back.

As Indians were being airlifted from the ground zero, a video surfaced on the social media on the Pakistani students stranded at the Chinese city, which was the worst hit by the virus that killed 565 people (till Feb 6) and infected more than 28,000 all over the world.

Asked whether India would consider Pakistani students' appeal for evacuation from Wuhan, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar on Thursday stated that no such request had been received from the Government of Pakistan. “But if such a situation arises and keeping in mind the resources available, we can look into it,” he added.

In the Upper House, the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the Indian Council of Medical Research would undertake to test samples from South East Asian countries.

“Testing of samples from the Maldives has already been undertaken. Request from Afghanistan for samples testing has been agreed to. We have agreed to provide technical assistance to Bhutan in managing this infectious disease and screening of passengers also,” Vardhan said.

So far, 1,232 samples have been tested in 11 Indian laboratories out of which 1,199 samples were found negative. All the three positive cases are from Kerala and they are stable.