Mubashir Naik
Hundreds of Kashmiri students enrolled in different colleges and universities are caught in a dilemma due to the lingering uncertainty regarding their exams. The students are divided, few are stranded in Valley, while most of them are in Bangladesh. University Administration is yet to take any final decision.
As Covid-19 is at its peak in India, Bangladesh has closed its border with India. It’s very difficult for the students stuck in Kashmir to travel to Bangladesh.
Earlier, medical colleges had scheduled the MBBS final year exam from May 30 but the students who were stuck in Kashmir urged the government for their intervention to facilitate their travel to Bangladesh which resulted in the deferment of the exam by another month.
While the exams are being deferred time and again, it has caused anxiety among the students. The students have started taking medical help. Those MBBS students who are stuck in Bangladesh, are demanding conduct of their final year exams to complete their degree on time. While those stranded in the valley are not able to travel to Bangladesh due to the sealed border, which has left colleges and universities confused.
Tahira (name changed), a final year Kashmiri student studying in Bangladesh told The Kashmiriyat, “We Kashmiri students studying under Dhaka University in final year are completely left in the dark. We were called back to Dhaka back in December 2020 to appear for final year exams. Since then, 3 datasheets have been announced and all got canceled.
In the middle of this ambiguity, few Kashmiri students returned to Kashmir and now the exams have been put on hold since they cannot enter Bangladesh due to COVID-19.
“Majority of the Kashmiri students decided to stay in Bangladesh as we were given assurance that exams would be conducted and stranded Kashmiris would be brought back. However, we have become a victim of the authorities, as they still have not been able to figure a solution to this. We tried to call the embassy, tried to reach out to our dean but no satisfactory response was given. All we are told is to wait,” Tahira (named changed), a final year MBBS student told The Kashmiriyat.
“We have lost one opportunity of appearing in our MCI exam which has already created a hole in our career. There are speculations that there might be a surge in Covid-19 by the end of June in Dhaka. All of this is provoking anxiety. This whole situation is making us lose our sanity. Students have resorted to medical help, all just to get a good night’s sleep. Please help us now because we have waited too long. Any further wait will only risk our life, health, and career. Covid-19 has already been a testing time for all of us. Please don’t make it worse by this heedlessness,” she said.
Nargis (name changed), another student told The Kashmiriyat, “We urge every person who has the capacity to help us in any way possible, that we have been waiting for 7 months for our final professional MBBS examinations. We are almost one thousand Kashmiri students, here, in Bangladesh and have been doing nothing since the past couple of months.”
All we want is that our exams are held, which have been put on hold due to 60 Kashmiri students who went back to Kashmir and have been unable to fly back to Dhaka. How ironic is it, we are just one step away from the completion of our degrees and being called a doctor? But we left confused with the uncertainty of our exams. Maximum students feel like they are in open prisons in their hostels. With no guarantee about exams we can’t focus even for a second,” she added.
“We have been suffering from severe distress in a foreign land despite our repeated desperate efforts of contacting the authorities. No clear answer was given. Our examination was put on hold on 4th April 2021 and since then, various notices were put out which were nullified later with no clear answers. Our career, money, health, everything is at stake. We demand a firm decision which indeed includes modification of the educational system! But we can not stay in these open prisons anymore.”
“Tell us what we have to do. Do not ignore our concerns.”Give us a specific response. This is mental torture, please free us of it.”
“We request our PM Narendra Modi, the Home Minister Amit Shah and the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir to intervene,” another Kashmiri student told The Kashmiriyat.
The Kashmiriyat tried to reach out to the Dean Faculty of Dhaka University via email, but no response was given as of yet.
The Story will be updated when we get an official reponse.