Rushing back: Students fly home due to security threats

KARACHI:

Nobody could get through to PIA on Thursday morning. Flights from Lahore to Karachi were delayed, overbooked and cancelled but students and their parents kept calling any airline that was flying out of the city at the earliest.

Students from the Lahore University of Management Sciences were busy packing up their rooms as many of them had a little more than hour before catching their flight home. Mobein Hafeez, an LLB student at the university, said that they were supposed to have their exams but on Wednesday midnight they received an email stating that all exams for Thursday were cancelled. "The next day we received another email which said that due to the security situation in the country the winter break was going to start from Friday, December 19 and end around January 9, 2015," he said while talking to The Express Tribune. "They also informed us that the exams had been rescheduled and will take place when we return." He added that he called his parents as soon as he read the second email and made arrangements to travel.



According to Hafeez, the airport was full of students trying to catch flights. "I packed up my belonging and headed to the airport with some friends who were flying back with me," he said. "The tickets were extremely expensive. I bought a one-way ticket for around Rs18,000, that is more than a return ticket." He added some students were still flying, driving and taking trains back to the city.

The Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad has also shut down and has not issued any notification explaining to the students what happened. Messages were sent to students on Saturday informing them that the examinations were rescheduled. According to students, they did have classes on Friday but they ended abruptly. A number of universities in Islamabad and Rawalpindi are still deciding on how they want to handle the situation.

The National University of Sciences and Technology, however, has asked students to return home due to the unstable situation in the country. "The university was open on Friday and classes were going on according to schedule," said Hassan. "After Friday prayers, they told us that the university will be closed for the week and it was advised that we should all go home."

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2014.