Annem Jyothi, who had sent out a plea for help after she and her colleagues were stopped from being evacuated from China’s Wuhan, has finally returned to India. Nearly four weeks back, 654 people were airlifted out of the coronavirus-hit Wuhan city by the Indian government. But ten Indian citizens, including Jyothi, who were eagerly waiting to return home were stopped by Chinese officials due to their high body temperature levels.
Speaking to TNM, Jyothi’s mother Pramila Devi, who has been eagerly waiting for her daughter, said that Jyothi has arrived in Delhi and is likely to be kept under isolation for a while. “The last time, they had isolated those who had returned for two weeks before sending them back. We’re guessing it will take the same time for her to return home. We are unsure about the details as we haven’t been able to talk to Jyothi at length,” she said, adding with relief that her daughter sounded fine and assured.
20-year-old Jyothi, from Ernapadu in Kurnool district, had gone to Wuhan to attend a training program, for a job with an optoelectronics company called Panel Optodisplay Technology Private Ltd (POTPL). POPTL selected the students during campus placements to work at its upcoming LCD TV screen-manufacturing unit near Tirupati.
Jyothi, along with another trainee engineer Sathya Sai Krishna from Andhra Pradesh, were not allowed to board the flight on January 31 as they were running high temperature. They were again stopped from taking the second flight on February 2 though they had no symptoms of coronavirus.
Jyothi and Krishna were among 58 trainee engineers of POTPL. Barring the two, all others had returned to India. Jyothi and Krishna were lodged in POPTL's dormitory for nearly a month, waiting for help from the Indian government.
Her fiance has also been anxiously waiting for her return. Until a day before her return, her family remained uncertain, as the group had been stopped from leaving Wuhan twice already. "The embassy has given only a tentative date. We have to wait. There will be tension till she boards the flight because we can't say anything with certainty about the Chinese authorities," Jyothi's fiance Amarnath Reddy had told IANS before her return.
Although their wedding date had been set for March 15, Amarnath said that it will be postponed as it may take her a couple of weeks to return home from the quarantine facility at Manesar. “She also needs time to recover from the trauma she went through for more than a month," he said.
So far in India, only three confirmed cases of coronavirus diseases have been reported, all of which were from Kerala. The three affected persons have already recovered and returned home from the hospital.
With IANS inputs