NEW DELHI: It took meetings with foreign minister S Jaishankar and senior MEA officials as well as persuasion by prominent Shia leaders to get Indians stranded in Iran, who are negative for Covid-19, to return home even as there was official confirmation that 255 Indian pilgrims have tested positive for the disease.A batch of 66 Indian pilgrims and some students who were in Iran arrived by a Mahan Air flight on Wednesday. Sources said a second flight with 270 Indians would arrive on Thursday. The pilgrims have been taken to a quarantine facility in Jaisalmer. Most pilgrims are from Ladakh which is now in a virtual lockdown, particularly after a soldier tested positive for the virus.Meanwhile, tweeting the story of a man thanking his government for ‘rescuing’ his daughter from Covid-19-hit Italy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “ Will do everything possible to help our citizens”.The pilgrims and students in Iran were also counselled by leaders of prominent Shia organisations, the IKMT (Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust) and ISK (Islamic School, Kargil) that they should be guided by the Indian government when many expressed unwillingness to leave family and friends (who tested positive) behind.There are hundreds of Indian pilgrims still stranded in Qom and some told TOI they are waiting to be rescued. A pilgrim from Kargil, Sheikh Naqi told TOI from Qom he was desperate to return and waiting to hear from the Indian mission in Tehran. The holy city is the most badly affected in Iran which has seen close to a 1,000 deaths caused by Covid-19.“We were about 850 pilgrims here. Some have managed to return today but we still don’t know what is in store for us. We are on our own here,” said Naqi. The embassy handed over a list of 255 infected to the pilgrims earlier but, according to Naqi, there seemed to some confusion about the status of many.On Wednesday the government confirmed in Parliament reports that 255 Indian pilgrims in Iran had tested positive and that apart from these 12 Indians in UAE, five in Italy and one each in Sri Lanka, Kuwait , Hong Kong and Rwanda are patients.Full report on www.toi.in