Coronavirus Outbreak: Jamia Millia Islamia, citing lockdown extensions, tells students to vacate hostels and go home

New Delhi: The Jamia Millia Islamia on Friday directed hostellers to vacate their rooms and return home after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) allowed the use of trains for ferrying people stranded due to the nationwide lockdown to their respective states. The university was shut owing to the coronavirus pandemic and would reopen in August for regular students, while the new academic session would commence from September. [caption id=“attachment_5192221” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of the JNU campus. Official website of JNU[/caption] The examination schedules slated for July 2020 will be notified in due course, the university said. The resource materials for exams and research are accessible online, it said. “The students stranded in the hostels who could not go back to their homes earlier and stayed back are hereby directed to vacate the hostels as per the arrangements of transportation and travel protocols of the state governments,” it said. The areas in the proximity of the university have been declared hotspots and sealed and the university said that it will become difficult to maintain logistics and manpower requirements in the future. The hostels are needed for maintenance and for contingent quarantine facilities, the university added. “Therefore, the hostels are to be vacated completely with no exceptions. The provosts (boys and girls Hostels) are requested to initiate the process urgently,” it said.