Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: Nepali students in Bangladesh are seeking shelter at the Indian embassy and facilities set up by India as protests against a job quota intensify in the South Asian nation as the response from the Nepali foreign ministry to the situation has remained slow.
According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, more than 500 Nepali students have been rescued so far. Some Nepali students, who were in Indian shelters, have already returned to Nepal. The students have said they were compelled to seek Indian help due to the lack of response from Nepali authorities regarding rescue and repatriation.
An additional 500 Nepalis are reportedly in the process of returning to the country. According to Indian media reports, Nepali students in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet, and Khulna are heading towards India.
Nepali students have that calls to the ‘hotline’ provided by the Nepali Embassy in Dhaka are rarely answered, and when answered, they are only told not to go out and not to panic. While the foreign ministry maintains that Nepali students are safe, the students have expressed anger over the lack of initiative to bring them back.
Nepal has not formally requested India’s assistance in bringing back Nepali students.
According to the Indian Foreign Ministry, as of Sunday, along with 4,500 Indian citizens, 500 Nepalis, 38 Bhutanese, and 1 Maldivian have arrived in India. They are preparing to send the rescued foreign nationals to their respective countries from Indian territory.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry has reported that more than 1,200 Nepalis have arrived in the Nepal-India border town of Kakarbhitta. However, it is unclear if all of them came with the help of the Nepali Embassy.
Ambassador Ghanshyam Bhandari in Dhaka seems to be struggling with the repatriation of Nepali students. Since the embassy has few Nepali staff, the ambassador and deputy chief of mission need to handle all the tasks. Experts have suggested deploying officers from Koshi Province to Kakarbhitta and mobilizing staff from the embassy in New Delhi to assist in the evacuation of Nepalis. The ministry, however, appears to be in a wait-and-see mode.
The foreign ministry has consistently been reactive rather than proactive in such situations. The ministry should have maintained statistics on the number of students in different locations and made needful arrangements for those wanting to return home as soon as the protests began.
Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba has been tweeting daily about the safety of Nepalis. However, Nepalis in Bangladesh are forced to seek shelter at facilities set up by the Indian government. An MBBS student told Himal Press over the phone on Monday that they are coming to Nepal from the Indian shelter. “We might arrive in Kathmandu from Biratnagar tomorrow,” she added.
The protests in Bangladesh began to subside after the country’s highest court ordered that 93% of employees in government and semi-government institutions should be recruited through open competition. According to the BBC, more than 100 people have lost their lives in the protest.
