Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health minister Taimur Jhagra has said that out of the 121 pilgrims that came to the province from the Pakistan-Iran border at Taftan, several were from Punjab, Sindh and Islamabad. Despite this, the KP government acted in national interest and did not abandon them.

"We kept these people from Islamabad, Pindi, Karachi, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Jhang and Mandi Bahauddin because it was the right thing to do, despite our limited space and facilities. Because once here transporting them back would have exposed many other people across Pakistan to risk," he said in a tweet.

In this crisis, governments may not be able to fix the issues that have built up over 72 years, but we owe it to each other and to this country to act in national interest, not just in self-interest, he said.