Five schoolteachers and their families from Nadia’s Santipur town have been left stranded at Rewalsar in Himachal Pradesh since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown on Sunday.

The 15-member team, including three children, had left Santipur for Himachal Pradesh on March 16. When they were returning to Shimla from Manali on March 20, they were stopped by police at Rewalsar in Mandi district. The police did not allow them to move beyond Rewalsar, 150km from Shimla.

The Himachal Pradesh government had announced a statewide lockdown on March 23 and sealed its borders.

Anup Sikdar, one of the tourists, said: “We came to know about the restrictions on tourists after reaching Manali. So we decided to cancel our trip and return to Shimla. But the police stopped us at Rewalsar. We urged them to allow us to go to Chandigarh, but they refused and moved us into a nearby hotel at our own cost.”

The tourists said the police sternly asked them to stay indoors till April 5 and leave only with their consent.

Bidhan Biswas, another member of the team, said: “We had planned out the tour and come with limited money. The two weeks of isolation at the hotel has made things tough for us. We are facing a shortage of funds as we are being compelled to pay the room rent of Rs 1,000 per day for each of the five rooms. This apart, we have to pay for our food.”

“Our daily expense is Rs 7,000 and we will run out of cash in two days. The hotel owner has asked us to leave if we fail to pay the rent in advance,” Biswas said.

The team members are anxious as they will end up spending a cumulative Rs 1.5 lakh on the tour if compelled to stay in the hotel till April 14, when the nationwide lockdown ends.

The tourists have urged their friends in Santipur to help them by transferring money to their accounts.