Taxis, security escort help Indian students escape violence-hit Bangladesh

Follow | https://indianexpress.com/article/world/bangladesh-protests-live-updates-job-quota-9460802/

“Our college was not affected by the violence but we heard there was trouble in the town (about 15 minutes away),” he told Reuters.

As news came in of students being killed in Dhaka, Hussain and about 80 others from his college hired private taxis to travel to the border that Bangladesh shares with India’s eastern state of West Bengal, about 170 km away.

The Indian High Commission (embassy) in Bangladesh also provided the students with a security escort after they requested for it, Hussain said.

Leaving their college at 2.30 a.m., the group reached the border six hours later but crossed it only in the afternoon after clearing immigration.

For Hussain, the journey will continue for another day as he travels to his hometown, Dhubri, in Assam state.

“It has been very scary…I have (still) not been able to speak to many of my friends in Dhaka,” he said.

Around 8,500 Indians are studying in Bangladesh – many of them pursuing medicine – India’s foreign ministry says, and about 15,000 Indians live in the country.

Bangladesh’s history is closely intertwined with India, which intervened on the side of Bengali nationalists in their 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.

India’s Meghalaya state, which too shares a border with Bangladesh, is also helping to evacuate people, with officials saying more than 350 students from India, Nepal and Bhutan have entered through this route so far.

In an advisory, India urged its citizens in Bangladesh to minimise movement outside their residences. The foreign ministry on Friday said that all Indians were safe in the neighbouring nation.

Nepal similarly said it was “closely monitoring” the situation in Bangladesh, where around 3,000 of its citizens study and another 50 work with the United Nations and other international organisations.