How security forces, taxis helped over 300 Indian students escape violence-hit Bangladesh

Tensions are high in Bangladesh as violent clashes continue between student protesters and security forces. Over 100 people have reportedly been killed as police cracked down on demonstrators opposing reservations in government jobs.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government imposed a nationwide curfew on Friday (July 19). She has also ordered the deployment of military forces to maintain order.

Amid the violence, several Indian students have returned home through the border in the Northeast. About 80-odd medical students took a six-hour journey on Friday in private taxis escorted by security to the border between Bangladesh and West Bengal.

Let’s take a closer look.

Indian students leave violence-hit Bangladesh

Over 700 Indian students have arrived home from violence-struck Bangladesh, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement on Saturday (July 20).

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“In addition, around 200 students have returned home by regular flight services through Dhaka and Chittagong airports. The High Commission of India in Dhaka and our Assistant High Commissions are in regular touch with more than 4,000 students remaining in various universities in Bangladesh and are providing necessary assistance,” the statement read.

The MEA said that students from Nepal and Bhutan have also been helped to reach India.

Many students who returned on Friday were studying in medical colleges in Bangladesh, with several of them belonging to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir, reported NDTV.

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Asif Hussain, who was among the 80 students who travelled back home on Friday from Bangladesh, told Reuters, “Our college was not affected by the violence but we heard there was trouble in the town (about 15 minutes away).”

He studies at a private medical college in  Bangladesh’s Manikganj district, about 50 km from Dhaka, and described being cut off from his family in India as especially “stressful”.

As news came in of students being killed in Dhaka, Hussain and about 80 others from his college hired private taxis to travel to Bangladesh’s border with West Bengal.

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

Leaving their college at 2.30 am, 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.

As per an NDTV report, many students used the international land port at Akhurah near Tripura’s Agartala and the international land port at Dawki in Meghalaya to return on Friday.

They decided to come back home after curbs on the internet on Thursday and disruption of telephone services.

“I am a second-year student at the Marine City Medical College and Hospital in Chittagong. The situation is getting worse and many restrictions have been put in place, which is why we have returned. Many other students have also come back. The internet is not working and we were not able to get in touch with our families. We could not get flight tickets and had to take the road route to Agartala instead of flying home,” Aamir from Haryana told NDTV.

The Border Security Force (BSF) on Friday evacuated 125 Indian students from Bangladesh through Meghalaya’s Dawki integrated check post along the state’s border with the neighbouring country, reported Times of India. The force was seen checking the identity poofs of returning students in Tripura.

VIDEO | A large number of Indian students studying in #Bangladesh returned home on Friday by the land route through Agartala city in Tripura.

They came back to escape the deteriorating law and order situation in the neighbouring country following a wave of student protests… pic.twitter.com/S7maRKcAen

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 20, 2024

The BSF has also been deployed along the West Bengal border with Bangladesh as students come back via land route.

According to ANI, the High Commission of India is working with local authorities to provide the required security to students keen on returning home.

The MEA has urged the family members of Indian nationals to keep in touch with the Indian High Commission in Bangladesh. It said on Friday that all Indians were safe in the neighbouring nation.

In an advisory, the MEA also urged its citizens in Bangladesh to minimise movement outside their residences.

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Indians in Bangladesh

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.

Meghalaya, 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.

An official told PTI that more than 670 people, including nationals of Nepal and Bhutan, are taking refuge in Meghalaya.

Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma told media that about 405 people, including 80 from the state, have been rescued so far.

India, which shares warm relations with the neighbouring country, has called the protests an internal matter of Bangladesh.

With input from Reuters