RAJKOT/SURAT/AHMEDABAD: Chaos and frayed tempers marked the first day of mandatory RT-PCR tests for people travelling to the state on Thursday as confusion prevailed at airports in Rajkot and Surat and passengers resisting testing. In wake of spiralling Covid-19 cases across Gujarat, the state government had last week announced that RT-PCR not older than 72 hours will be made mandatory effective April1.
Chaotic scenes were witnessed at Surat airport for two hours when the only international flight carrying 168 passengers from Sharjah landed around midnight.
Airport officials said due to space crunch and mandatory testing resulted in the chaos. Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) has outsourced testing to a private laboratory and only two staff members were carrying out testing, leading to long queues. “In Dubai, they did free testing at the airport and completed the process in 15 minutes, but here they charged Rs 800 and took a long time,” said Sarfaraz Patel, a businessman.
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Surat: The Surat district and sessions court on Thursday allowed an NRI from Bharuch, who is accused in 2016 cases of being in possession of demonetised currency notes, from continuing his stay in the United Kingdom (UK) owing to the coronavirus related restrictions on travel.
Court had in December 2019 allowed accused Zakir Patel (43) to visit his family in the UK and asked him to return to India before December 31, 2020.
Patel was booked by Surat crime branch in December 2016 under IPC sections 489B (using as genuine, forged or counterfeit currency notes or bank notes) and 489C (possession of forged or counterfeit currency notes or bank notes). According to police, Patel had given 600 Indian currency notes of Rs 1,000 denomination to one Faisal Patel via his brother Sarfaraz Patel to exchange in lieu of new notes.