Every evening around 8pm, Karim* locks himself inside his small hostel room at East West Medical College in Nishat Nagar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
If there is a knock on the door, he pauses before opening it, listening carefully first for familiar voices.
Outside the campus, he avoids crowded tea stalls and markets. He does not speak Bangla fluently, and he knows that his accent could give him away as an Indian – an identity he desperately wants to mask these days, if he can.
Karim came to Bangladesh in April 2024 from his home in the northern Indian state of Haryana, after failing to secure a government medical seat in India. At the time, Dhaka felt welcoming. He would go out with classmates, eat at restaurants, and travel outside the college on weekends.
“Those outings helped me release the stress of studies,” Karim said. But in July 2024, when protests erupted against then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government, his routine changed. Fearing that the environment outside was no longer safe, Khan confined himself to his small room.
The college advised him and other Indian students to remain within the campus premises. It has stayed that way since then. Karim says he feels trapped, and the city that once felt like a second home no longer offers a sense of safety.
He is among more than 9,000 Indian medical students currently enrolled in Bangladeshi colleges, at a time when anti-India sentiments are soaring in the country, 16 months after former Hasina sought exile in New Delhi.
Credit: aljazeera.com
