After a month, Nuh kids stuck in Gujarat head home

Rao Jaswant Singh | TNN | Updated: Apr 28, 2020, 09:27 IST

21 students were sent to Vadnagar as part of an exchange programme

GURUGRAM: Twenty-one students, who were stuck in Vadnagar in Gujarat’s Mehsana district after the country went into a lockdown in March, began their journey home to Nuh (Mewat) on Monday afternoon. They were expected to reunite with their families later at night after a gap of one month.
As part of an exchange programme, the Class 9 students had been sent to Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) in Vadnagar last year, while those from the school’s Mehsana branch had arrived in Nuh. While the Nuh administration had sent the students back to Mehsana just before lockdown began, the students in Mehsana got stranded.
The parents of the students had been running from pillar to post to arrange for their safe return. On Sunday, Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh intervened and sought clearance from both the state governments to send a Haryana Roadways bus to Vadnagar to bring back the children.
Singh told TOI that the families had been under a lot of stress when they approached him. “A bus, along with cops, was sent to bring the students back from Gujarat. They will be tested once they reach Haryana and sent home only after that,” he said.
Rajuddin Jung, whose daughter Samiya is returning, said the families had been more relaxed once they were informed about the arrangement made for the children. “We are desperately waiting for them,” he said.
Another parent, Yunus, said he was looking forward to seeing his daughter Sofiya return home. “We were worried about the well-being of the children. They had been in the hostel in Gujarat since the lockdown,” he said.
Jung claimed that the children had to face hardships during this period. “I spoke to my daughter at regular intervals. She said that the school authorities were treating them as a liability,” he said.
However, Vijay Kumar, principal, JNV Vadnagar, said the students had been living in their hostels where all facilities were in place. He added that train reservations had been made for March 26 but services were halted due to the lockdown. “The Nuh and Mehsana administrations were in touch. We got the mandatory tests done in view of Covid-19 and sanitised the bus before sending them in it,” Kumar said.