Jamia students vacate hostels, locals open their homes

Monday morning at Jamia Millia Islamia saw terrified students leaving the campus with their luggage even though their exams were yet to end.
Students leave Jamia Millia Islamia hostels following violence over protests against Citizenship Amendment Act, in New Delhi on Monday. | (Photo | Shekhar Yadav)
Students leave Jamia Millia Islamia hostels following violence over protests against Citizenship Amendment Act, in New Delhi on Monday. | (Photo | Shekhar Yadav)

NEW DELHI: Monday morning at Jamia Millia Islamia saw terrified students leaving the campus with their luggage even though their exams were yet to end.

“My exams were going to end on December 18 and I had booked my tickets after December 20 but now we had to vacate the hostel. We spent last night outside till a friend’s family let me stay at their house at Zakir Nagar. It’s a crisis...it is not easy to get confirmed tickets right now but I will have to find a way to reach home,” Mudasir Nazar, a student of JMI and resident of Kishanganj in Bihar, told this newspaper.

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Mudasir is one of the thousand students who is leaving the university campus following the police action on students on Sunday, in which they entered campus and allegedly lathicharged students and used tear-gas shells.

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“Since the situation has worsened and been telecasted all over the nation, my family has been extremely worried. My mother in Aligarh has asked me to come home at once.  Someone from my hometown has left for Delhi to bring me home with them,” said Farheen.

Apart from students in hostels, others who were living in the areas surrounding the university are also vacating their rented accommodations to head back home. “We are PhD researchers and seven of us are from Kashmir so we feel it is best to return home for some time. We are not safe inside the campus so it’s impossible for us to feel safe outside. We hope to get bus or train tickets,” Sahil Ameen (name changed) said.

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Another student said he had initially planned to stay back in the campus during winter vacations but seeing Sunday’s incidents and the police crackdown, he has decided to go home. “The situation is such that we cannot stay here. The protests are raging out even today and we do not know when they might escalate. It is better we go home,” he said. Meanwhile, many locals –Hindus and Muslims — opened their houses to the students.

“I have been seeing the videos of panicked students, dragging their luggage out of the hostels on TV. These students are 18 or 20-year-olds and one can’t fathom what they are going through so I opened my house to them.,” said Vatsala, a journalist and Jamia alumnus. The university Vice-Chancellor, Najma Akhtar said that she had directed the administration to facilitate the students who wish to return home.

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