Chandigarh, April 22 – The Aam Aadmi Prty (AAP) Punjab has expressed serious concern over the plight of a sizeable number of people from various part of Punjab, in Australia and other countries of the world.
In a statement from party headquarters issued on Wednesday, state unit president and parliamentarian Bhagwant Mann, said that a large number of people from Punjab, who had gone to Australia visitor/ tourist visa to see their wards studying in that country, while others had gone there to seeking medical advice, got stuck up after the outbreak of corona pandemic, which was followed by a national lockdown leading to the cancellation of international flights.
Mann said in a letter to prime minster Narendra Modi that Indian nationals, a majority of them Punjab, were stuck up there and other countries, including New Zealand, Canada, Italy, the UK, the USA, France, Spain, Soudi Arabia, Malasia, saying the stranded Punjabis and others keep asking for immediate help for their safe return home. The AAP leader added the stranded were due to return to India in the month March’ 2020, but could not do so due to the enforcement of lockdown and extending its periodicity till May 3, 2020.
Mann further add in the letter that in view of the blanket ban imposed on the international flights from other countries amid the epidemic, they saw no hope of returning to their natives anytime soon given the alarming scenario. Now that the harried Indian nationals, the letter further added, a majority of them from Punjab, had been struck at Melbourne and are subjected to undergo a whole lot of hardships as they had run out of money, besides being vulnerable to Covid-19, adding the Indian Embassy in Australia had expressed helplessness in expatriating them to their homes due to the ban on international flights.
The AAP leader said that with a little or no means of livelihood and lack of medical and facilities of other essential items of daily use, they had been left to fend for themselves till the resumption of the international flights. Mann has sought intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s in the matter to secure safe return of the stranded nationals of Indian origin by pressing into service rescue flight to ferry them home amid the national lockdown.
