Two students from Maharashtra stranded in coronavirus-hit Italy, kin urge Amravati MP Navneet Rana to ensure safe return to India

Nagpur: Amid the coronavirus outbreak, two students from Maharashtra’s Amravati district are stranded in Italy, prompting their parents to urge the local MP to facilitate their safe return to India. Pranav Vairale, who is pursuing civil engineering from Polytecnico Di Milano university, and Suraj Bundele, studying at the University of Marangoni Rovereto, have been stuck at the Milan airport in Italy since Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_8128911” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] Pranav’s grand uncle Govind Vairale, who lives in Nagpur, told PTI on Thursday that in view of the current coronavirus scare, both the students booked their tickets with Air India on 2 February, and were supposed to board the flight from Milan on Wednesday. He said while booking the tickets, the students were not told anything by the airline authorities, but when they went for the check-in at Milan airport on Wednesday, they were asked to produce the ‘coronavirus negative certificate’. Before going to the airport, the students had tried for a test at a hospital at Lecco in Italy, but they were denied the test, he claimed. “On the day of their travel, it was mentioned on the official website of the Government of India that such passengers would be screened at all airports and are required to produce self-declaration forms, but Air India authorities denied check-in to them and nearly 150 other passengers,” the relative said. The parents of both the students have written a letter to Lok Sabha member Navneet Rana to take steps to bring them back to India safely. Rana is an independent Lok Sabha member from Amravati. In the latest wave of restrictions, Italy on Wednesday shut all stores except for pharmacies and food shops in a desperate bid to halt the spread of coronavirus that has killed 827 in the European country in just over two weeks. Italy has witnessed nearly 60 percent of the deaths recorded outside China since the epidemic first started spreading from the Asian giant’s central Hubei province in January.