Students oppose Jamia move asking students to vacate campus hostels

The university said hostel provosts would arrange transportation for them as per the travel protocol of their respective home states.

The Jamia Millia Islamia administration on Friday asked students stranded in the university hostels to vacate rooms and leave for their homes, saying several areas near the campus had been declared Covid-19 hot spots.

Several students wrote to Jamia’s vice-chancellor Najma Akhtar, saying they feared for their safety while travelling.

The university said hostel provosts would arrange transportation for them as per the travel protocol of their respective home states.

The Union government had, on Friday, allowed the railways to run special trains to ferry students, migrant workers stranded in various parts of the country due to the nationwide lockdown, which was extended till May 17.

However, several students wrote to Jamia’s vice-chancellor Najma Akhtar, saying they feared for their safety while travelling. They also argued that they did not want get stuck at quarantine centres after reaching their respective states.

The home ministry’s guidelines for transporting workers and students to their home states, however, mandate only home quarantine, unless an assessment by local authorities deems that a person be kept in institutional quarantine.

Around 300 students are currently putting up in the university’s seven hostels on campus. The other students had vacated their rooms when the lockdown was announced in March.

In the order issued on May 1, Jamia registrar AP Siddiqui said, “Students stranded in the hostels who could not go back to their homes earlier and stayed back hereby directed to vacate the hostels as per the arrangements of transportation and travel protocols of the state governments. The areas in the proximity of the University being declared as hot-spots sealing the designated areas with no movements being allowed. It is difficult for the university to maintain logistics and manpower requirements in the future. The hostels are also required for sanitisation, maintenance, and for contingent quarantine facilities. Therefore, the hostels are to be vacated with no exceptions.”

The Jamia order said the university will reopen in August for regular students, and the new academic session will begin in September.

“The examination schedule slated for July 2020 will be notified in due course. Study materials are uploaded on the website, and students are being given e-material. We do not know how long the lockdown will continue. The university will not be able to manage under the present circumstances,” said an official.

Jamia Millia Islamia, in Delhi’s south east revenue district is also a red zone along with the other 10 of the city’s districts. The Delhi government has declared parts of surrounding neighbourhoods such as Zakir Nagar, Abul Fazal and Shaheen Bagh ‘containment zones’, after several cases of Covid-19 emerged in these areas.

A third-year student at Jamia’s Allama Iqbal Hostel said students are apprehensive of the travel, and fear they may contract the contagious disease. “We are also afraid that once we reach our states, we will get stuck in quarantine facilities, where there are no proper arrangements of food and medication,” he said.

A resident of J&K girls hostel said, “Some Kashmiri women were sent home by the Delhi government through buses, which were stopped at Jammu border. We do not want to get stranded like that. It’s very unsafe. Also, there are elderly people back home. We can’t risk their lives.”

Some students also raised the issue of poor internet connectivity in their hometowns. “We do not have Wi-Fi at home. I am preparing for competitive exams, and I need the internet for my studies. I don’t know what will we do,” said a third-year student who hails from a town in Jharkhand.

University officials said the safety of students will be taken care of while travelling. “We will soon notify students about the arrangements,” a university official said, but did not give any further details.

Meanwhile, no such order has been issued to students living in hostels of the two other central universities in the national Capital — Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University.