Zubair Qureshi
Islamabad
Parents of the students stranded in Wuhan city of China for the last twenty-five days since outbreak of novel coronavirus have complained the authorities were least bothered about their grievances and were doing little to bring their children back home.
While attending a stormy session held jointly by Pakistan’s three ministries—Foreign Affairs, National Health Services and Overseas Pakistanis—relatives of some 1,200 Pakistani students condemned the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government for ‘turning a deaf ear to their requests of early evacuation.’
They are facing shortage of food and essential items, suffering from depression and many psychological issues and the fact that other countries swiftly moved their students from the virus-hit province has added to their anxiety, said they.
Although the Chinese government and the local authorities are providing them all the necessary food supplies and medicines yet they said they were anxious to come back and live with their families.
Some 150 parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles of the students had come to attend the briefing the government held for them on the directions of the Islamabad High Court.
The briefing, however, did not go smoothly as Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health, Dr Zafar Mirza at the very outset made it clear that evacuation of the children from China was not in the national interests of the country and the government would not bring them to Pakistan.
The relatives of the children who came from Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistant to attend the briefing termed the health adviser’s reply outrageous and stood on their seats chanting slogans “bring our children back.”
Prime Minister’s close aide and Adviser on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfiqar Bukhari tried to calm down the agitating parents but the audience was not ready to listen to him and had one-point demand i.e. to bring their children from China.
An elderly man from Sargodha whose two daughters are studying in Wuhan, however, cooled down his fellows and asked the government to follow examples of the other countries of the region like Nepal, Sri Lanka and India which had evacuated their children and now they were under observation. “The government could bring them to Pakistan and keep them in quarantine set up for this purpose,” he said.
To this the Prime Minister’s Special Assistant said novel coronavirus was an everyday changing phenomenon and no one could say for sure how long it was safe to keep a suspect in quarantine, two weeks, three weeks or a month.
“We cannot say for sure what is exact treatment procedure and how this virus can be countered,” he said.
They, however, assured the grieving parents that the government was aware of their grievances and they would also convey their feelings in the Federal Cabinet’s upcoming meeting on today, Thursday.
