'VIP’ students allowed to go without COVID-19 screening at Srinagar airport

A group of students arriving here from Bangladesh created a ruckus at Srinagar International Airport on Thursday when they were directed to quarantine facilities.

As a precautionary measure, the students had to be quarantined as per the directions of the district magistrate. “The medical authorities at the Airport requested the students to cooperate for the quarantine process to which they did not agree and started protesting, breaking window/glass panes of the Airport arrival area,” a police spokesperson said.

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He said that the parents of these students, who were waiting outside the arrival terminal, also started protesting. “Police along with magistrate tried to pacify the protesters, but, they continued with vandalism. Police has taken cognizance of the incident,” the spokesperson said

He added that the students were later sent for quarantine at pre-designated locations by the administration.

However, father of one of the students said, the protests erupted after two female students walked out of the Airport without undergoing the mandatory screening for the Covid-19 infection, courtesy their ‘influential parents’.

“Two female MBBS students enrolled at a Medical College in Bangladesh arrived with 30 other students at the Airport in an early morning Indigo flight from Kolkata. All the students were kept at the arrival lounge with 250 other travelers who had flown in from different parts of the country,” he said.

A traveller, who witnessed the scene, told DH that an airport official signalled two girl students to follow him. “The official took them out of the airport through the VIP exit without mandatory screening. They were daughters of two senior government officials,” he said.

“This can only happen in Kashmir. Influential persons take out their kin from the airport by throwing all the rules to the wind. What if these students turn out to be coronavirus positive,” he asked.

SSP, Budgam Amod Nagpuri denied the report that any student was taken out of the airport by their parents without undergoing mandatory screening. “We have received no such report,” he added.