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Reunion with kin, across plexiglass

Kolkata: Emotional scenes played out at the Kolkata airport foyer on Monday afternoon with the passengers from Dhaka reuniting with their families, albeit with a plexiglass shield in between. Families gathered at the glass barricade beside Gate 5A to see their kin and spoke to them over the phone.

“I saw my daughter after seven months.

What if we were separated by glass? At least I could see her. I even took a photograph of her from outside,” said Arshia Amolia who waited at the airport for more than three hours to catch a glimpse of her daughter. Amolia and her husband even reached the Broad Street hotel, where their daughter was to stay, ahead of the special bus that ferried her there.

But everyone was not as lucky. Sishir Ghosh, a doctor, was busy at a Ranaghat hospital and couldn’t come to see his son Sounak, a medical student who returned on Monday. Sounak has opted to stay at a government quarantine centre in Rajarhat. “We are eagerly waiting to meet Sounak after a fortnight. There is no scope to meet him now, otherwise, I would have come down,” said Ghosh.

Behala resident Pradyut Saha was among the firsts to reach the airport even though he knew there was no scope to see his sons — Prithviit and Promit — who were returning home after almost six months. “Even if we can’t bring them home now, at least I know they are in the city and are safe. That’s enough for us,” the businessman said.

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