Hyderabad: In a major relief to Kashmiri students studying at the Central universities in Hyderabad, their families in the Valley were able to talk to them after landline services were restored in several areas on Saturday.
Students said they heard their family members for the first time after 12 days of clampdown.
PHD scholar Imtiyas from the Maulana Azad National Urdu Univesity (Manuu) was able to speak to his brother who had travelled 10 km to make the call.
The family members did not give them any account of the situation in Kashmir.
A few of them asked the students not to return to Kashmir.
“I received a call from the station house officer’s (SHO) phone in Pulwana district, it was my brother. He didn’t speak much about the prevailing situation. I assume officers were nearby. He asked me about my wellbeing and conveyed that my family was doing well,” one of the students said.
“My friends whose families live in the remote villages in the Valley were asked not to return home due to the scattered protests. A few students came from Kashmir to Hyderabad on Friday, they said the protests were not active now,” the student said.
UoH student Hadif Nasir’s father travelled 15 km from his home to Qazigund in South Kashmir and called him from the SHO’s line. “My father called me after 12 days. In our three-minute conversation he told me that my family is alright, He said the people had been caged, businesses were inoperational as a result of the blanket ban,” he said.
Not all students received phone calls from home. Mudasir Nazir, a PhD scholar at Manuu, who is yet to receive a call, “If all landlines were restored I would have got a call from my family. They will have to travel a long distance to a SHO office where the calling facility is available,” he said.
