The Patron-in-Chief of Bahira Town and well-known real estate tycoon, Malik Riaz, and his team refused to test for coronavirus upon the landing at Lahore airport on Sunday.
This is a requirement for every individual coming from abroad under the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) guidelines.
The SOPs set by the government require every citizen to undergo Rapid Antigen Testing for the coronavirus upon landing at any airport from another country.
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However, the real estate tycoon, his wife, and two more members of his staff considered themselves exempted from the condition and left the airport without taking the test, despite the insistence of the on-duty health officials.
The Lahore Airport Manager and COO, Akhtar Mirza, informed the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of the development in a letter dated May 17, 2021.
Mirza wrote in the letter that the Bahria Town CEO left the airport without undergoing the test and later refused to cooperate even when a team of airport health staff went to his residence to take the samples.
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The letter mentioned Malik Riaz, his wife, Bina Riaz, and team members, Shahid Mahmood Quershi, Gulzar Akhtar, and Muhammad Azam, were those who initially refused the Aviation Authority’s request for a test on arrival at Allama Iqbal International Airport via a chartered flight from Dubai at around 10:30 pm on Sunday. Later, two of them tested negative, but Riaz, Bina, and Qureshi left the airport without taking the test.
Note that the CAA has tightened the rules regarding on-arrival testing after detection of coronavirus in some passengers coming from abroad.
“Upon conducting an investigation into the issue, it has been found that passengers traveled to Pakistan using fake PCR negative test results and endangered not only passengers traveling with them, but also undermined the intense efforts being made at the national level to curb the spread of COVID-19,” the authority said in a notification dated May 10.
