DUBAI: A 27-year-old pregnant Indian woman in Dubai has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India seeking help to return home for her delivery, amidst the international travel lockdown imposed by India over the coronavirus pandemic, according to a media report.
Athira Geetha Sreedharan from Kerala said she wanted to return to India for the birth of her first baby, due in the first week of July, the Gulf News reported.
Sreedharan, who lives in Dubai with her husband Nithin Chandran, filed the writ petition in the apex court seeking help to return to her home country following the suspension of flights to India as part of the precautionary measures to curb the spread of the COVID-19, the report said.
India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
All domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this period.
The first phase of the lockdown was from March 25 to April 14.
The second phase began on April 15 and would end on May 3.
Owing to standard flight restrictions during pregnancy, Sreedharan has submitted to the court that she can travel up till the first or second week of May.
In her plea, she said she has no one to help her except her husband who cannot seek leave as he works in a construction company, the sector which is not shut down during the national disinfection and sterilisation campaign here.
In the plea she requested the apex court to direct the Indian government and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to make arrangements for her return, the report added.
On April 17, the Indian government told the Kerala High Court that there was no immediate plan to bring back expatriates from Gulf? and they were also granted visa extension.
Speaking to Gulf News on Wednesday, the engineer-couple said the case was filed with the help of the youth wing of UAE-based expat organisation Incas, among a host of Indian community groups campaigning for the repatriation of stranded Indians here.