Looks like the Kerala students will not have to walk all the way from Delhi to their homes. On May 16, Kerala house, the official state mission of Government of Kerala at New Delhi has informed the students that a special non-stop train from Delhi to Kerala will ply on Wednesday, May 20.
Around 300 students, who were on the verge of getting evicted from their hostels and rented accommodations had earlier planned to walk a distance of more than 2,600 kilometres to reach home, have now called off the strike. "We are calling off the strike. This is a much welcome decision from the government's end," says Sakeer Hussain, a student of Jamia Millia Islamia. Sakeer will be one of the passengers on the train on Wednesday. "However, the government could have taken this decision much earlier. We found out from the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NORKA) that arranging this train was just a 24-hour-long process," he says.
"Our call for the strike did actually make a difference. The government finally decided to arrange a non-stop train as we demanded," says Sneha Shaji, NSUI National Coordinator. "NORKA officials had asked all of us to register again so that they could prepare a final list. We were asked to send our names and NORKA ID. However, we are yet to get any information from them after that," she says. She too opined that the government could have arranged for a train much earlier.
Previously, the members of the Students Tenants' Union Delhi (STUD) and the Students' Federation of India (SFI) had raised an issue about students being evicted from their rented accommodations, despite the lockdown. They had also written a letter to the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, asking him to waive off the rents until the lockdown ends.
