N Gomatesh heaved a sigh of relief after landing at Chennai airport on Sunday late evening, July 21. He was among the first batch of Tamil students who arrived safely in the city from strife-torn Bangladesh.

Over 40 Tamil students stuck in different parts of Bangladesh were brought back on different flights to Chennai on July 21.

Gomatesh, a native of Tiruvannamalai, was pursuing fourth year of MBBS in a medical college in Bangladesh. Along with Gomatesh, 14 Tamil students studying in the same college were the first to land in Chennai and they were received by Minority Welfare and Overseas Tamil Welfare Minister Gingee Masthan.

"As internet and mobile phone services were down, we were not able to contact anyone. It was frightening as violence was escalating with each passing day. After the curfew was imposed, our college hostel stopped serving food and we survived on noodles for two days. We then contacted the Indian embassy which managed to rescue us from our college and safely dropped us at the Kolkata border. After reaching Kolkata, we contacted the TN helpline number and they took care of everything, " said Gomatesh.

"As our college is located 60 km away from Dhaka, we managed to escape first. Our friends in Dhaka are still stuck there and we are not even able to contact them," added Gomatesh.

"There is violence everywhere in Bangladesh and we consider ourselves lucky to have escaped from that situation, " said Dharani, another student.

With the escalating violence in Bangladesh over the allocation of government bobs, the death toll exceeded 100 and saw several Indian students returning home.