Srinagar Mar 29: Amid rise in COVID-19 cases in India, distress messages from Kashmiri students continue to pour in with around a dozen medical aspirants from the valley saying they had been stranded in Rajasthan’s Kota city amid the prevailing all-India lockdown.
The students asked the Jammu and Kashmir administration to facilitate their return back home.
Many students from the valley coaching for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2020 at LN Coaching Institute in Kota told Kashmir Reader over phone that they had been put in a quandary due to the prevailing lockdown especially for the want of groceries.
Adnan, an aggrieved student hailing from Sumbal in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district said that since the all-India lockdown began, most of the grocery stores in the locality remained closed which had put them in a tight spot.
The students said that the lockdown and the rising number of COVID-19 cases had also put their parents back home in a state of mental agony.
Asif, another aggrieved student also complained that the grocery stores in the area remain largely shut since the lockdown began.
Atif Javed, another aggrieved student, who is putting up in a private rented accommodation in Kota, said the house owner had categorically warned him not to venture out of his room else he will show him the door.
He said that the mess at his hostel where he was putting up before the lockdown began had been closed last week.
Pertinently, the J&K Resident Commission had on Saturday asked the students stranded in different parts of India due to the ongoing lockdown, to call on its helpline numbers for help.

Irshad Khan