Kashmiri students in Bangladesh want to go home as virus fear grows
Currently, there are around 500 Kashmiri students stranded in Bangladesh where around 8,000 students from different districts of Jammu and Kashmir study in different medical colleges of Bangladesh
Hundreds of Kashmiri students studying in Bangladesh have demanded immediate evacuation amid the ten-day government imposed holiday in Bangladesh and three-week lockdown in India leading to border and air connection cut in an attempt to curb virus spread.
One of the students stranded at Dhaka Medical College told Outlook, "All I want is to be at home. Even if I have to die, I want to die in Kashmir, in my home. I don't want to die here.
Since the past decade, Kashmiri students' educational destination for medical studies has been Bangladesh due to geographical preference.
Currently, there are around 500 Kashmiri students stranded in Bangladesh where around 8,000 students from different districts of Jammu and Kashmir study in different medical colleges of Bangladesh.
"Our hostel has 400 rooms and now we are only 30 girls here. It is true that the Bangladeshi government or the college authority hasn't asked us to leave, but we are away from home. Anything can happen here. At a time when everyone is rushing home, we were pushed back from the border and have been confined to the hostel. Most of the hostel staffs have gone and others would also leave. Where will we go?" asked a student from one of the medical colleges in Dhaka.
"We don't know how long will this continue and we are about to suffer a mental breakdown," the student added.
Omar Qazi, one of the students who left Bangladesh on March 19 said, "We are in panic and in trouble. Who wouldn't be in such a situation and living far away from home? When everyone is leaving why shouldn't we?"
In a series of tweets, former chief minister Omar Abdullah has also expressed concern over the Valley students stuck in Bangladesh and different states.
The government in Jammu and Kashmir have put a large number of students who have come from different parts of the world in various hotels across the Valley for quarantine. The hotels are being used as quarantine facilities in the Valley, Outlook reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, some 64 Kashmiri students in Bangladesh took a bus to reach Bangladesh-India border but the Indian authorities refused permission for them to cross the border.
Alleging that the authorities are not coming forward to evacuate them, a student said, "We fear that the situation in Bangladesh is likely to change for worse. All we want is to go home. We will follow all protocol back home like other students who earlier left this place but for that we need to be evacuated from here first," said another student.