Pakistan on Tuesday said that 176 Pakistanis stranded in India due to the current coronavirus lockdown will return home on Wednesday through the Attari-Wagah border.
India like many other nations in the world has imposed a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus which has created havoc around the world by infecting 5,543,439 and killing 347,836 people.
“These 176 Pakistanis were stranded in different Indian states including Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and Delhi due to the extended lockdown and closure of Attari-Wagah border following the outbreak of coronavirus,” the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.
“In line with the Prime Minister’s directions, for safe and smooth repatriation of stranded Pakistanis, the High Commission for Pakistan in New Delhi remained in close contact with the Indian side and the Foreign Office has been coordinating with other national authorities in Pakistan,” the FO added.
It said the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi also facilitated and coordinated logistics for transfer of these Pakistanis to Attari from more than twenty different Indian cities, amid the lockdown.
More than 400 stranded Pakistanis have been repatriated from India through Attari-Wagah border since March 20, 2020.
The ongoing efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue till the repatriation of all remaining stranded Pakistanis, the FO said.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that more than 110,000 Pakistani stranded in various parts of the world wanted to come back.
Pakistan has till now witnessed 57,705 cases of coronavirus, with 1,197 deaths.