Another batch of 489 people, mostly students, were allowed to go home on Friday, after completing their quarantine in Srinagar.

“All these people have successfully completed the 14-day long quarantine in the accommodation provided to them in Srinagar.

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Authorities made quarantine accommodations for these people in different hotels of Srinagar. Majority of them are students who returned from Bangladesh and are now being allowed to go home in different places of the Kashmir Valley.

“They have been allowed to go home today with the advice that they must remain in home quarantine for another 14 days”, said district officials in Srinagar.

So far, over 600 people have successfully completed the quarantine period after which they were allowed to move to their homes.

District Magistrate Srinagar, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary has said while most of those who had hidden their travel history have come forward, but if somebody is still hiding his/her travel history that would be an alarming development.

Earlier, a week back, the Delhi High Court during a hearing (through video conferencing) of a plea seeking safe return of Indians stuck in Bangladesh had asked the central government to explain steps taken by it to evacuate around 580 Indian medical students who were  stranded in Bangladesh due to the coronavirus pandemic. Most of these students are residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

The plea sought direction to the authorities to appoint nodal officers in the Indian embassies and make contact number and email of these nodal officers public so that the Indians who are stranded abroad can contact them and seek help in the time of the global health emergency.

Meanwhile, on April 2, a schoolgirl named Seerat from Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir was seen appealing to the citizens to stay inside during the nationwide lockdown called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In a video posted by Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region, Dr Jitendra Singh, the girl was seen appealing to the public to abide by the PM’s order of lockdown.

“Let’s join our hands to fight together against the deadly coronavirus. We can fight it out together, and that’s possible only when we follow the instructions given by our Prime Minister,” she said.

She made a special appeal to those who came from other countries and states by asking them to stay inside during the lockdown.

“I appeal to such people to go to the nearest health centers and tell the medical professional there about your medical history,” she urged.

She also appealed to pray being in house itself. “We can offer namaz while being in our home itself as it is no crime. We need to keep our surroundings clean and wash our hands repeatedly with soap.”

“If we have string intentions, then we can beat coronavirus easily,” she asserted.

Meanwhile, 328 coronavirus cases have been reported in the last 24 hours in India, taking the overall infections to 2069, whereas the toll stood at 53.