Long way home: Indian students who escaped Iran face an uncertain future

Hassan still wakes up fearing sound of missiles. It has been days since the 23-year-old medical student returned to his home in Poonch, in Jammu and Kashmir, but the tremors have not left him.

Mr. Hassan’s memories remain anchored in the nights when the sky itself seemed to collapse over Isfahan. “I still feel those shocks in my mind,” he says quietly, pausing mid-sentence as he looks out toward the mountains beyond his window. “It’s difficult to get out of it.”

Just weeks earlier, Mr. Hassan was a third-year MBBS student in Isfahan, building toward the most critical phase of his degree. Today, he is back home, uncertain, financially strained, and unsure whether the past two years of his life will count for anything.

His journey back was neither swift nor fully supported. On March 11, 2026, the 22nd day of Ramadan, Mr. Hassan left his hostel in Isfahan as tensions escalated following coordinated United States and Israeli strikes on Iranian cities on February 28, 2026, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury” and “Operation Roaring Lion”, the same strikes that not only targeted strategic infrastructure but also killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior Iranian officials, altering the political and security landscape of the region.

Crossing borders

The airspace over Iran had shut down. Evacuation, if at all, would happen by land. He travelled first to Qom, where foreign students were being gathered. From there, he and a group of around 30 students were transported over 15 hours to Jolfa, near the Armenian border. “We stayed there for two days,” he recalls. “There were too many students, and lists were being prepared to make evictions group-wise.”

Crossing the border itself took another 12 hours. Then came an 11-hour drive to Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, arriving at 6 a.m. Exhausted, disoriented, and without clarity on the next step, Mr. Hassan waited again, this time for flights.

There were no direct flights to India. On March 19, he boarded a connecting flight to Dubai, waited six hours in transit, and finally reached Mumbai on the morning of Eid-ul-Fitr. Two days later, he reached Poonch. The total cost: over ₹1.5 lakh.

“Only in Iran the Indian embassy managed our expenses,” he says. “Once we reached Armenia, everything was from our own pocket.” He adds, with measured frustration: “The government calls this an evacuation, but we bore all expenses ourselves.”

The bus arranged by the embassy, he says, dropped students only as far as its premises. Beyond that, there was no structured logistical or financial support.

The physical journey, however, is only one part of the story. Mr. Hassan’s university has been mainly shut since December 28, 2025, when civilian unrest surged after Iran’s currency crisis. Classes stopped. Exams were postponed. Clinical exposure, essential for medical students, was disrupted.

“I was at the prime of my course,” he says. “I was preparing for internships. But this war… it shattered many dreams like mine.”

For each semester, Hassan paid $3,000 in tuition, with monthly expenses around $100. With classes halted for over four months, he now fears losing an entire academic year. “A whole semester has been ruined,” he says. “We don’t know if the war will stop or continue like Russia-Ukraine.”

He also speaks of nights punctuated by fear. His hostel was located near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base. “There were tremors in our walls and cracks in windows,” he says. “Every time a missile hit, we felt it.”

Internet shutdowns compounded the anxiety, cutting off communication with families. “Every night became a nightmare,” Mr. Hassan says. “I was emotionally, physically, and mentally drained.”

Hassan’s story is not isolated.

Indian students abroad

According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), around 9,000 Indian nationals are currently in Iran. While there is no official disaggregated data for students, estimates suggest that between 1,000 and 2,000 are from J&K alone, many enrolled in medical and technical programmes due to relatively lower costs.

Globally, over 18.8 lakh Indian students are studying abroad across 153 countries. Yet recent data presented in the Rajya Sabha indicates a 31% drop in outbound students from 9.08 lakh in 2023 to 6.26 lakh in 2025, driven by rising costs, visa restrictions, and growing geopolitical uncertainties.

Iran, for many, had remained a cost-effective alternative. But that calculation is increasingly fragile.

The Government of India launched Operation Sindhu on June 18, 2025, to evacuate Indian nationals following escalation in the Iran-Israel conflict. The operation began with the evacuation of 110 students via Armenia. It followed earlier evacuations; over 4,400 Indians were repatriated during hostilities in June 2025.

Such interventions are not unprecedented. In recent years, India has conducted multiple evacuation missions, including Operation Ganga (Ukraine), Operation Kaveri (Sudan), Operation Ajay (Israel), and Operation Devi Shakti (Afghanistan).

Academic disruption

Yet, as students point out, evacuation is only the immediate response. The longer crisis lies in what follows.

Khadeeja Zehra, 24, from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, had gone to Iran with a different dream.

Ms. Khadeeja is seated at her desk in Delhi, a research paper on Indo-Iran relations open in front of her, and as she pauses to gather her thoughts, she absentmindedly looks at her official selection confirmation letter from the University of Tehran, same letter that once symbolised entry into a transnational academic space but now sits as a reminder of an interrupted trajectory.

“I still keep these,” she says, almost reflexively. Ms. Khadeeja completed her Bachelor’s in Persian from Jamia Millia Islamia in 2023 and applied to Iranian universities in early 2023. The process was rigorous: documentation, interviews, and delays. “The selection happened in 2024,” she recalls. “The interview was conducted online.” Khadija even remembers the name of the professor who took her interview, “Safazi Naqavi held my interview through a video call.”

By September that year, she had received her official confirmation and visa approval. Iran, however, came with its own adjustments. Despite her academic background in Persian, Ms. Khadeeja struggled with conversational fluency and was transferred to the Dehkhoda Lexicon Institute & International Center for Persian Studies for intensive language training. The costs added up, ₹11,000 for the first semester, ₹15,000 for the second, and over ₹1 lakh annually for accommodation.

She stayed in Iran for 11 months. Then came the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, from June 13 to 24, 2025.

“I still remember the night,” she says, her voice tightening slightly as she recalls the moment, almost as if reliving it through fragments. “The sound of missiles hitting Tehran… the building shook.”

She was among nearly 200 students evacuated through embassy coordination. Unlike Hassan, she managed a direct evacuation from Mashhad to New Delhi, though not without difficulty. “My mother was in Iran at the time,” she says. “We had to travel 149 kilometres by car to reach Qom.”

The decision that followed was harder. After returning to India in June 2025, Ms. Khadeeja chose not to go back. In August, she enrolled at Jamia Hamdard in Delhi to continue her studies in International Relations.

“I have lost prime years of my life,” she says, still holding that file. “I don’t want to waste more.” Yet the attachment remains. “My heart is still there,” she admits. “For exposure, for research, I would still want to pursue my Ph.D. in Iran.”

Her experience reflects a broader academic disruption. There is currently no clear policy framework in India addressing credit transfers or academic continuity for students returning from conflict zones.

Regulatory bodies such as the National Medical Commission have not issued specific guidelines for such contingencies, leaving students in what many describe as a “regulatory vacuum.”

Kayenat Rizvi, 25, from Lucknow, offers another perspective, one marked by persistence amid repeated disruption. A student at Jamiat al-Zahra in Qom, one of the world’s largest seminaries for women, Ms. Rizvi had been preparing for years. She completed her earlier education in Lucknow and began online classes as early as 2021 while waiting for her visa.

In 2024, she finally travelled to Iran to pursue advanced religious studies. But stability proved elusive. “We were told that for two months we won’t be able to take any classes,” she says. “That has impacted my degree. I won’t be able to finish it on time.”

She briefly returned to India during the 2025 conflict and later went back, only to return again amid fresh escalation. “Going back and coming here again and again, it affects studies,” she acknowledges.

She also points to disparities in evacuation timelines. “Students from Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, they left early,” she says. “Only Indian students were stuck longer.”

Despite this, her tone carries a degree of resolve. “After every dusk there’s dawn,” she says. “I will go back and finish my studies.” Still, the uncertainty is palpable. “Every day feels empty,” she adds. “Every night I hope classes will resume.”

On February 28, the Indian Embassy in Iran issued its first advisory for Indian nationals, urging caution. On March 03, 2026, the Indian Embassy in Iran issued an advisory and update for Indian students regarding the evacuation of those outside Tehran; on the same day, the Ministry of External Affairs released an official statement on the evolving situation; on March 04, 2026, the Government of India set up a dedicated Control Room operational from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; on March 07, 2026, the MEA issued another advisory addressing safety concerns of Indians across West Asia and the Gulf region; and on March 09, 2026, the Indian Embassy in Iran issued a fresh advisory reiterating precautions and urging nationals to remain vigilant.

The Jammu and Kashmir Students Association has been coordinating with both students and officials, while the All India Medical Students Association has raised concerns about those unable to leave due to withheld passports, submitted earlier for visa extensions.

“The total number of Indian students in Iran is around 1,700 to 1,800, out of which nearly 1,100 to 1,200 have been evacuated, while the rest remain there largely due to rising expenses and warnings from universities that if they leave the country they may fail,” said Dr. Jitendra Singh, national president of the association, in a conversation with The Hindu. “Many students simply cannot afford the cost of travel, flights from Armenia to India range between ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh. We are in continuous contact with the remaining students and coordinating with the embassies to ensure their safety.”

Nasir Khuehami, National Convenor of the JKSA, said that back-to-back uncertainties have affected students’ careers: “First they were struck by the 12-day war, then civilian unrest, and now this year, it has derailed students studying abroad.”

He said the lingering uncertainties have also extended the duration of courses: “Usually, the MBBS finishes in six years, but when these situations arise, it drags the degrees as well, making it hard for students to cope with the curriculum within a given timeline.”

Meanwhile, at an inter-ministerial briefing on the West Asia situation, Aseem R. Mahajan, Additional Secretary (Gulf), Ministry of External Affairs, said the overall flight situation continues to improve, and that around 4.26 lakh passengers have returned from the region to India since February 28.

“During this period, a total of 2,149 flights, including scheduled and non-scheduled flights operated by Indian as well as foreign carriers, have flown from the region to India,” he said.

For Mr. Hassan, these broader numbers offer little immediate comfort. Back in Poonch, the days pass slowly. His textbooks lie stacked but untouched. His future, once structured around semesters, exams, and clinical postings, now feels suspended.

“I think about the past two years,” he says. “And the future… it looks dark.” At night, sleep does not come easily. “Sometimes,” he says, “it feels like I am still there.”

(Mohsin Mushtaq and Arsalan Shamsi are freelance journalists based in New Delhi.)

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