After the Delhi police barged inside the Jamia Milia University’s hostels amid protests on Sunday, students are left fearing for their safety and security within the college and hostel grounds.
After the first clash between students, locals and the police, not many students had packed their bags to leave, they had stayed back for studies, internships and to continue the protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act. However, after the chaos and threat created by the police on Sunday, many more students were seen leaving the hostel looking distraught.
Students had a sleepless night with constant calls from parents and rumours about the police re-entering the hostel in the middle of the night.
According to The Indian Express, Laila Khan, a student at the Mass Communication and Research Centre from Mumbai said, “I have never received these many calls from my parents before. They are frantically calling us back home. We could not sleep last night; we were so scared. After what happened here last night, it’s just not viable to stay here any longer.”
Amid fear of being persecuted for no reason and several rumours, students at made sure their door and windows were shut tight throughout the night. A Bachelor of Dental Surgery student from Aligarh told the paper that their friends who didn’t live in the hostel had invited them to stay over at their places but the students couldn’t afford to move out as it wasn’t safe to move out in the night. The student was leaving the hostel on Monday morning but did not have a ticket to go home.
Another 19-year-old BSc Physics student told the paper, “There are around 10-15 Kashmiris in the hostel, but we cannot go home right now because we don’t have tickets. We do not have a plan yet; we are trying to decide where to go next.” Like many others, the 19-year-old was also leaving the hostel fearing police brutality but had nowhere to go.
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