Dimapur, May 26 (MExN): “Now, that our state (Nagaland) is no more a COVID free state and more stranded citizens will be coming home, the government should now sharply focus more on testing and containing the spread of this deadly virus,” the Dimapur District Citizens’ Forum (DDCF) said while adding “the inmates and workers also at the quarantine centres now should be closely monitored. The testing, quarantine facility and safe treatment are of utmost important now.”
Reiterating its earlier statement, the Forum in a press release issued but it Media Cell stated that “the BSL-2 at CISHR, Dimapur should have been made fully functional by now and we hope that the government is doing its part on priority basis now that the testing of all returnees are made mandatory.”
The Forum also stated that “if the returnees are not allowed to stay at Kohima quarantine centres on their transit and sent straight to their respective districts, the government should see to it that all districts are be equipped with their own virology testing labs.”
“Now that the fight against this COVID19 pandemic in Nagaland has begun in the real sense,” the DDCF appealed “to all not to panic or stigmatize anyone but instead to support each other and join hands in this fight together.”
It maintained that “Dimapur even after being the entry point for all the stranded people and housing the majority of the returnees in its quarantine centres and even without any functional virology laboratory, its denizen have never complained and have warmly welcomed our stranded brothers and sisters back home.”
DDCF hopes that all the other districts too would do the same in welcoming our own brothers and sisters back home.
Meanwhile, it also expressed shock over the press release of Kohima Village Council (KVC) and the Angamimiapfü Mechü Krotho (AMK) and stated that “it is uncalled for during this time of pandemic crisis when all developmental activities of the state are concentrated in Kohima-the state capital of Nagaland.”
“What is the use of setting up the BSL-3 lab in the state capital, if people from other district are to be restricted from staying in Kohima? Where has our hospitality gone? Is Kohima not the capital of the state of Nagaland? Instead of shifting responsibility, even the Kisama heritage village should be included as one of the quarantine centre for returnees from other states,” the Forum questioned in the press release.
