As coronavirus continues to spread across the country, the federal and all provincial governments are taking strict measures to contain the outbreak. One of the many steps being taken by the authorities is quarantining foreign travellers before they are allowed to interact with anyone in Pakistan.
Amid reports that travellers are being transferred to the quarantine facilities set up across the country right from the airport, one of the quarantined passengers, who had travelled from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Peshawar during the wee hours of Wednesday, reached out toThe Current and shared pictures of the nightmarish conditions they are being forced to live in.
“We are stuck here at Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Postgraduate Paramedical Institute in Peshawar after being told that we’ll be tested and then allowed to leave. It will soon be two days since we were locked up here and no one has conducted our tests yet,” the traveller said.
They said they were being treated like criminals, and it was unfortunate how the conditions they and several others were being forced to live in were entirely different than what was being claimed by government officials in front of media.
“Test us as soon as we land and just let us go. We were obviously also tested by the country we are coming in from,” the traveller said further, adding that the procedure didn’t take more than two hours but the negligence of the authorities had led to their suffering.
The district administration had last month declared educational institutions in Peshawar as coronavirus quarantine facilities.
A notification issued by the administration had said the premises declared as the quarantine facilities were student hostels at Peshawar University, sub-campuses of other universities and educational institutes within these premises, Postgraduate Medical Institute Peshawar, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Postgraduate Paramedical Institute and Pakistan Academy for Rural Development.
The administration had also asked the police to ensure deployment across the facilities to prevent any unauthorised movements in or out of the premises.
