Former Union minister Saifuddin Soz has urged the Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor to ensure that about 6,000 Kashmiri shawl sellers stuck in Bengal can return home.

“They explained their hardships but emphasised the most urgent need for transport to return home to Kashmir at the earliest,” the former minister of environment, forests and water resources in the central government said.

“I wrote strongly to Shri G.C. Murmu, the Lt Governor of J&K Union Territory, and strongly urged him to ensure transport to about 6,000 Kashmiris now stranded in West Bengal, particularly, in Calcutta.”

Soz, a Congress leader, named two Kashmiris he had spoken to: Haji Mohammad Yaqoob and Firdous Ahmad.

Yaqoob, a shawl seller from Srinagar who has been staying with others in a rented accommodation on Elliot Road, told Metro on Monday that they had spent their savings in booking air tickets in the third week of March. But flights did not take off and they are still to get any refund. “We have to book a ticket on the AC train. But we don’t have money and we don’t know what will happen to us. We are somehow surviving, but don’t know how we can continue.”

Firdous Ahmad, 59, from Srinagar, is now cooped in a small Central Avenue accommodation. “We don’t have any money left. We are looking forward to support from the Jammu and Kashmir administration.”

There are many like Yaqoob and Ahmad. Metro had on May 17 reported about Arif Ahmad Lone and Mohammad Umar, from Budgam district, who are now living in Baghajatin.

The sellers are now looking for a bus. They have got in touch with a tour operator in Park Circus. “We want to board the bus to Jammu somehow and reach home. The trains will be of no use,” Lone said.

A large group from Maheshtala has succeeded the bus way. “We paid Rs 1.8 lakh to a bus operator,” Farooq Ahmed, one of the bus passengers, told The Telegraph over phone.

The bus had reached Jammu on Monday evening.

Lone said on Monday evening that he had managed to gather money to book a train ticket with the help of a charitable organisation. “I am waking up early so I can book a ticket whenever the booking window opens at 8am. But over the past four days I have found that the slots close within 5 minutes of opening, long before our turn comes.”

One more Covid-19 hospital

A Covid-19 hospital will be started at KPC Medical College and Hospital, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.

A portion of the campus will be turned into a Covid hospital without hampering the functioning of other departments, a hospital official said in the evening.

There are five Covid-19 hospitals in the city. These are: MR Bangur Hospital in Tollygunge, an annexe building of AMRI Salt Lake, Beleghata ID Hospital, Calcutta Medical College and Hospital and the New Town campus of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute.

MR Bangur has 1,100 beds, AMRI Salt Lake 51, Beleghata ID 82, Calcutta Medical College 500 and CNCI 192.

There can be 200 beds at KPC because the portion that will be converted into a Covid hospital has only that much space, the hospital official said.

It is not clear if the hospital will have isolation beds for Covid-19 suspects as well as for those found positive or only for the positive patients.

“We are in talks with the health department,” the official said. “We are trying to start the hospital at the earliest.”