435 returnees sent home from quarantine
CHITRAL: 435 returnees sent home from quarantine centres out of 1,139 people who returned to Chitral from different cities after corona outbreak and completed two weeks in quarantine.
There are 60 quarantine centres set up in government and private buildings such as colleges, hostels, hotels and guest houses.
Even though the local administration discouraged and the divisional administration created deliberate hurdles by stopping them on the way and humiliating them, the Chitralis still continue returning to their home villages.
During the last two weeks, 435 returnees sent home from quarantine after they spent two weeks in quarantine.
Moreover, samples of 27 people in the quarantine were sent for test and results of 19 of them are still awaited while eight tested negative for coronavirus.
The samples are now dispatched to Peshawar as Chitral has no testing facility. Initially, the suspected COVID-19 patients were sent to Peshawar for test.
Meanwhile, though the pandemic has not subsided in any part of the country life seems returning to normality in Chitral, especially after the federal government announced relaxations in the lockdown.
Now shops of some particular goods such as garments, shoes and furniture etc are closed but their owners have also demanded that they should also be allowed to open their businesses, adding they would follow the precautions including social distancing.
I have been hearing that district administration of lower Chitral is repeatedly asking people of Chitral not to come to Chitral from other cities fearing they might bring corona virus to Chitral. I want to make it clear to every one in the admin whether police, army, scouts and AC, they have no right under any law to stop a native from coming to Chitral.
Had there been a law under which one can impose such a restriction, the govt of Pakistan could have stopped hundreds of zaireen from returning from Iran.
When you say don’t come home it means not only you are violating the basic law and human right but also show your incapability to cope with the issue.
Please don’t treat people who work as labours in cities like criminals by blocking their way home and putting them in dirty rooms of hotels and other buildings without proper food and other facilities.