Coronavirus: India suspends most land border crossing points

India has suspended land border crossing points with Pakistan indefinitely from 16 March midnight in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak that has claimed two lives in India, PTI reported Saturday.

It was not immediately clear whether this included the Kartarpur corridor opened in November for Indian pilgrims to visit a highly revered Sikh shrine in Pakistan’s Narowal district.

India and Pakistan have one land crossing at Attari-Wagah besides the Kartarpur crossing.

On Saturday, Indian officials had said that New Delhi would close 18 of 37 border crossing points between India and countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. It would come into effect from midnight Sunday.

The move was aimed at channelling movement through those check points with adequate facilities to detect incidence of SARS-CoV2 infections, they said at a briefing on measures to tackle the outbreak of the disease in New Delhi.

Visa free entry for nationals of Bhutan and Bangladesh would however continue, they said.

All passenger movements through all immigration land check posts at India-Bangladesh, India-Nepal, India-Bhutan, India-Myanmar borders will be suspended from 12 am, March 15 & at India-Pakistan border from 12 am, March 16 till further orders except the below mentioned posts.

Indian government is leaving no stone unturned to contain the virus outbreak, which left two people dead so far.

Prime minister Narendra Modi is to address via video link a meeting of all South Asian leaders in a bid to evolve a common strategy to combat the spread of COVID-19, that has so far infected 150, 000 people in more than 120 countries across the world, according to an AFP tally.

“Timely action for a healthier planet. Tomorrow at 5 PM, leaders of SAARC nations will discuss, via conferencing, a roadmap to fight the challenge of COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus. I am confident that our coming together will lead to effective outcomes and benefit our citizens,” Modi said in a Twitter post on Saturday.