16 evacuees from Kabul test COVID+, among them 3 who met Hardeep Puri

Of the 78 people evacuated from Afghanistan on Tuesday, 16 have tested positive for COVID-19. Among them are three Afghan Sikhs who carried the Swaroops of Guru Granth Sahib and with whom union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri  and V. Muraleedharan had interacted.

“Dharmender Singh, Kulraj Singh  & Himmat Singh all three who brought Swaroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji from Afghanistan have been tested Corona Positive & have been sent to quarantine centre. I pray for their speedy recovery,” BJP national spokesperson R P Singh tweeted

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The infected people have been quarantined and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW), in a press release, said that all Afghan returnees have to undergo 14-day mandatory quarantine on their arrival in India.

Puri had received the Swaroops in Delhi on Tuesday. “Today, I got the privilege to serve three ‘swaroop’ of Guru Granth Sahib ji that arrived in Delhi from Kabul,” Puri, the minister for housing and urban affairs, tweeted in Hindi. He also shared a video that showed him carrying a copy of the scripture.

Also present at the airport to receive the Swaroops were BJP National General Secretary Dushyant Gautam, BJP National Yuva Morcha Secretary Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, State Spokespersons Aditya Jha and Brajesh Raiand, and BJP national spokesperson R P Singh.

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On Monday, 78 people, including the 44 Afghan Sikhs, were flown to Dushanbe from Kabul on an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft. They arrived in Delhi on an Air India flight around 9.50 am (Tuesday), said Puneet Singh Chandhok, president of the Indian World Forum, an organisation coordinating the evacuation efforts with the Ministry of External Affairs and the IAF.

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Chandok added that nearly 200 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are still stranded in Afghanistan. They have taken shelter at the Karte Parwan gurdwara in Kabul, which is near the airport.  According to people sheltered in the gurdwara, the 10-km drive to the international airport through various checkpoints is one of the biggest challenges in the rescue efforts, reports PTI.

India began evacuation from Afghanistan on August 16 and around 730 people have been brought back since kabul fell to Afghanistan