The second batch of 129 Indians, stranded in Bangladesh due to the coronavirus-linked global travel restrictions, left for home on Saturday afternoon on board a special Air India flight, the airport officials said.
"A chartered Air India aircraft flew 129 Indians to Delhi, India, at 1:05pm on Saturday," Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) Director Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan told Dhaka Tribune.
The evacuation flight carrying the Indian students from Dhaka will land in Delhi directly.
More such flights are also being readied by the authorities to facilitate other Indians as part of “Operation Vande Bharat” - a massive repatriation operation to bring home Indian citizens stranded abroad.
On Friday, a special flight of Air India, carrying 168 Indian citizens, left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for India.
Indian High Commissioner Riva Ganguly Das was present at the airport to see off the first batch of Indians leaving Bangladesh. Officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) were present at the airport as well.
The first batch of stranded Indian citizens are students at various medical colleges in Dhaka, and were taken to Srinagar.
The stranded Indians will be evacuated in phases.
During the first phase, six more flights of Air India will carry Indian nationals to Srinagar on May 12-13, Delhi on May 9 and 11, Mumbai on May 10, and Chennai on May 14 throughout a week, with each flight carrying approximately 170 passengers, sources at Dhaka airport said.
The Indian High Commission in Dhaka has been in constant touch with the students and resolved various issues such as food, lodging, finance, etc, in close cooperation with the principals of the medical colleges, who have been most generous with their support in this difficult period, UNB reports.
The Government of India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has commenced the biggest repatriation exercise ever with "Vande Bharat Mission," to bring back Indians stranded abroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This includes many Indian nationals who travelled to different countries before the countries went into lockdown, on various purposes such as employment, studies, internships, tourism, business, etc.
Apart from the above cases, there are Indian nationals who need to visit home due to medical emergencies or death of a family member, according to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.
Bangladesh has so far brought back 2,000 of its citizens from a number of Indian cities who were stranded there due to the countrywide lockdown to curb Covid-19 transmission.
