Over 200 students from India are stranded in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, with the Government of India deciding to ban flights from several countries.
The students, hailing mostly from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, spoke to The Hindu on Tuesday evening, and said they were sent from Manila in Philippines as the number of COVID-19 cases was steadily increasing.
Harshina, a medical student who hails from Anantapur, was among the 200 students frantically trying to get on to a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Chennai. However, with the Indian government imposing a travel ban on many international flights, they were not allowed to board any flight. The students are now worried about their fate.
“We do not have any medical support in Manila and it is very costly there, so when the Philippines government gave us 72 hours to leave the country, we booked our tickets and landed in Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of Tuesday (IST) and are scheduled to leave for Chennai on a 9 p.m. flight,” Ms. Harshina said.
Another student Chetan Adury from Hyderabad told The Hindu over phone from Kuala Lumpur that they had contacted the Indian embassy and were pleading with the government to allow them to board flights to India. “Our documents are being verified in batches of 10 by the Kuala Lumpur immigration authorities and we hope they get a positive response from the Indian government,” said Mr. Chetan.
All of them made frantic calls to their loved ones in India, sending recorded video messages asking the Indian government to act fast and allow them to reach India as early as possible.
