As many as 125 passengers of a chartered flight from Italy tested positive after landing at the Amritsar airport in Punjab today, according to government officials.

There were 179 passengers, including 19 children, on the chartered flight from Milan that arrived at Amritsar around 1.30 pm. The flight made a technical halt at Tbilisi (Georgia), according to officials. It was reportedly operated by EuroAtlantic Airways, a Portuguese company.

Since Italy is one of the "at risk" countries according to the Union Health Ministry, all 160 adult passengers were tested for Covid-19 on arrival and 125 of them were found to be positive, officials said.

The 19 children were exempted from on-arrival RT-PCR testing in accordance with the official rules.

The passengers who have tested Covid positive will be sent to institutional quarantine.

There was chaos at the Amritsar airport as a large number of passengers wanted to leave and policemen were trying to control the crowd.

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