J&K Alerted as 4 Kashmiri Scholars Quarantined at AMU Disappear

Officials said the airports in Srinagar and Jammu have been alerted to check the identities of all passengers.

Image used for representational purposes only.

(Photo: AP)

Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have been alerted against the entry of four Kashmiri PhD scholars of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) who had been put in quarantine but have disappeared from the facility under mysterious circumstances.

Officials said the airports in Srinagar and Jammu, besides the Jammu railway station, have been alerted to check the identities of all incoming passengers, They’ve been asked to quarantine all the four scholars, who had visited United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Taiwan, should they arrive at either of these airports or stations.

The J&K Police, the Central Industrial Security Force and the Railway Police, and also a screening facility near Qazigund on the Srinagar-Jammu highway, have been asked to immediately detain the four scholars for necessary quarantine.

Scholars Could be Arrested, Booked for Putting Others at Risk

Officials said there was a possibility of the four scholars being arrested and booked for the offence of carrying the infection and putting the lives of others in danger, under provisions of the disaster management laws invoked recently.

Chief Medical Officer at AMU, Dr Shariq Ali, wrote to the Dean Students’ Welfare, AMU, on 19 March that three Kashmiri students had visited UAE from 4 to 9 March and had been admitted to the UHS Isolation Ward at 4:00 pm on 18 March for quarantine.

He added that all three – Azad Ahmad Wani, Mohammad Iqbal Rather (PhD scholars in AEBM) and Bilal Ahmad Rather (PhD scholar in Botany) – were absconding since 9:45 pm on 18 March.

“Another PhD scholar (Department of Maths) Mr Zahoor A Rather, who had visited Taiwan from 15th Feb to 14th March and was admitted in our isolation ward at 8:35 pm last night, also left the hospital at 11:00 am today [19 March] and informed me in writing that he is leaving for his hometown of Anantnag,” the CMO wrote in the letter.

Chaos & Confusion Continues at Srinagar Airport

For a second consecutive day on Friday, 20 March, there was chaos and confusion at Srinagar Airport as 45 medical students, mostly girls, who arrived from Dhaka via Kolkata were whisked away and admitted to an isolation facility established at a hotel in Nowgam, in the outskirts of Srinagar.

Officials said it was not immediately clear whether any of the four AMU scholars was among the hundreds of passengers who arrived at Srinagar Airport on Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday, police resorted to baton charge on the girl students and their parents, who were demanding self-isolation at home under medical supervision rather than the compulsory quarantine at some ill-equipped hostels and the Hajj House.

Police officials said that the action was taken after the students and their family members turned unruly and smashed glass panels at the airport terminal building. The students, however, termed the police action “unwarranted and unprovoked”, claiming that it was a peaceful protest against “preferential treatment” of some students of the influential families who were permitted to go home.

Dr Huma Ishrat, who escorted her daughter from Dhaka to Srinagar via Kolkata and Chandigarh, told The Quint:

“Our children have been lodged at some hotels and hostels which have no facilities. There are not even blankets, let alone other heating arrangements. Even the food given to the students was so dirty that the doctors in charge at the isolation facilities refused to eat it.”

She claimed that there was “absolutely no testing or screening” either at the airport or at the isolation facilities as the teams simply jotted down details of the students arriving from Bangladesh.

“Even the students who have no symptoms or complications will certainly develop the same here as they have been huddled like cattle in a stable,” Ishrat said.