It took an extraordinary well-coordinated humanitarian effort for Indian and Australian authorities to repatriate 25-year-old Arshdeep Singh, who suffers from a chronic kidney ailment, to India.
Arshdeep was taken on a special Qantas flight from Melbourne to Delhi yesterday, where he was taken straight to a hospital in Gurgaon.
A tweet by Manjit Singh GK, former President, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, showed Arshdeep inside an empty plane enroute to Delhi.
Arshdeep’s family had been struggling with arranging his travel visa and flight in the middle of the pandemic, which has resulted in travel restrictions to and from Australia.
“We didn’t have visas, so we decided to apply. But we couldn’t travel to Australia since flights were not operating. Manjit GK and Indian World Forum pushed our case. Many commercial flights refused to bring back Arshdeep,” Arshdeep Singh’s brother-in-law Kunwar Anand told news agency ANI.
“The Australian government played a very big role in the medical repatriation. I want to thank Prime Minister Modi, the Australian government, doctors for providing the best treatment. We don’t have any words on the ordeal which we faced,” Mr Anand added.
In June, Arshdeep’s mother, Inderjeet Kaur wrote to S Jaishankar, India’s Minister for External Affairs, about her son’s condition and asked for help in June.
Her letter was shared on Twitter by Manjit GK, who had also tagged Australian PM Scott Morrison and Indian PM Narendra Modi, requesting them to “facilitate her request & urgently assist her on compassionate grounds”.
“I am speechless. I am very thankful to the Indian government, the Australian government and doctors, who quickly started his treatment and informed me after his dialysis. After waiting for so many days, he is finally coming here for his further treatment,” Inderjeet Kaur told the news agency.
NRI Affairs News Desk
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