As the Taliban took over Afghanistan on August 15, the fate of students has been questionable. Afghan students enrolled at Indian colleges and universities have been requesting the institutes to allow them to study from campus and help them with the visa work amid the chaos in Afghanistan. Most students have been studying online this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 has a history of not allowing women to attend colleges and schools. Some Indian institutes have stepped forward to help their Afghan students.

IIT Bombay has allowed students to join on-campus classes. Director Subhasis Chaudhuri took to social media Facebook to announce the same. He said that the IIT has a few students from the Afghan country under their scholarship scheme. “We offered admission to quite a few students from Afghanistan in the master’s program this year under scholarships from ICCR. Because of online instructions, they were participating in the class from home. However, due to rapidly deteriorating conditions in their homeland, they wanted to come out of their country and join the hostels on the campus. Although we have approved their request to come to the campus as a special case, we are not sure how late it is for them to pursue their dreams. We hope that they are all safe and can join us soon,” the director said.

Over 2000 Afghan students come to India on scholarships offered by the ICCR, which is now is facilitating the issuance of visas to the students in coordination with the Indian embassy in Kabul.

IIT Delhi Director V Ramgopal Rao has opened announced helpline numbers for its Afghan students. At present, the institute has 17 Afghan students enrolled in its various programmes. “In this hour of crisis, IIT Delhi stands in solidarity with our students and alumni from Afghanistan. We are doing everything possible to get the students to return to the campus,” tweeted Rao. The university has also invited Afghan students for its International PhD Fellowship Programme (IPFP).

Three students from IIT Madras are also stuck in Afghanistan. The institute along with the Office of Global Engagement at IIT Madras has issued letters to the students to help them apply for a visa. However, the students informed us that the situation is difficult with long queues at the consulate, reported news agency PTI. “Once they obtain their visas there is a further hurdle of getting passage to India by air,” an IIT Madras spokesperson told PTI.

Meanwhile, 25 students studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) whose visas end in two months have pleaded with the government to extended their visas. is also considering requests made by Afghan students to return to Indian campuses.

Some Afghan students of JNU have also requested the university to allow them to return to the campus. The university in a press release has said that the “matter is currently being looked into”.

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