NEW DELHI: Twenty-four-year-old Tahir says buying a return ticket has always been the norm before travelling home to Jammu & Kashmir’s Kupwara, since he moved to Iran in 2022 to pursue an MBBS degree. This time, however, he has booked a one-way ticket to Delhi.Tahir was among the first batch of nearly 70 Indian students, most of them from Kashmir, who landed at Delhi’s IGI Airport on Sunday after travelling from Iran. At the start of the war, around 1,200 Kashmiri students, most of whom study medicine, were in the restive country.Relief was writ large on many faces outside the international arrivals gate at Terminal 3 on Sunday. Naina, a 22-year-old final-year medical student from Anantnag, said the past month was full of anxiety as the students waited for communication from their universities and Indian government. “I could feel the tremors after bombs hit police stations near my hostel,” she said. “The entire room was shaking.”The students said they paid for their own flights while the Centre facilitated their documentation and travel clearances.Iran has declared a 40-day period of mourning following the death of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Universities have suspended classes for now. The Indian students have been told they are expected to return for examinations once academic activities resume.“We were in the middle of our clinical trials,” said Sohail Amin, 23, another medical student. “But the moment the conflict began, everything stopped. In a situation like this, schools and hospitals are usually the first places to shut down because they often become targets.”The students said while they had received a general advisory regarding the exams, there was little clarity about what the immediate plan would be for them, particularly how their degrees would be impacted.Some of their classmates who could not afford flights home have been moved to the city of Qom, where the situation is relatively calmer than in Tehran. Tahir said that while he usually spends around Rs 25,000 on a round-trip ticket, this emergency journey cost him nearly Rs 55,000 for a one-way flight.For Mohammad Asim, Tahir’s cousin in Delhi who came to receive him at the airport, the past few weeks had been deeply unsettling. “Everything was so uncertain. Our loved ones were stuck there and all we could do was wait for updates,” he said.With internet services frequently disrupted in Iran, many students said staying in touch with their families had been difficult. One final-year student described the emotional dilemma they faced. “We didn’t know how much to tell our families. We wanted to be honest, but we didn’t want to them to be worried.” Adviyah, a 25-year-old student from Budgam, said they had spent nearly three weeks dealing with uncertainty while trying to reassure their families.The 70-odd students were first moved from Iran to Armenia about four days ago, then flown to Dubai and finally to New Delhi. “We are incredibly exhausted from the journey. We haven’t had a proper meal in four days,” a final-year student said.Even after reaching Delhi, home remains around 800 km away. Some will travel overnight to J&K by bus, while others have arranged domestic flights. Yet, for now, the only thing that matters for them is being home, safe and sound.
