More students from Calcutta studying in different cities in northern India continue to return home, while some who got their flight tickets later in the week are leaving cities closer to the Pakistan border.

The agreement between India and Pakistan on Saturday evening gave a temporary relief, but the violation by Pakistan later in the evening brought back the panic among the students and their parents.

“Since Sunday morning, students are leaving the campus, travelling back to their home towns in various parts of the country,” said a second-year law student of OP Jindal Global University in Sonipat, Haryana, on his way to Delhi on Sunday afternoon.

The resident of New Alipore flew back to Calcutta on Sunday evening.

“The agreement brought relief only for a couple of hours. But back of the mind, we were not feeling secure, and my family asked me to return,” he said.

For many students in Punjab, the military action from both nations in the last couple of days was a horrifying experience.

Keval Ambani, a computer science student at Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, said that a mock drill of the previous night on campus became a real exercise the next day.

“On May 7, we did a mock drill when the lights in the university were switched off for 15 minutes or so. But the next day, there was a complete blackout at the university. The lights were switched off from 11pm on May 8 to 3am on May 9. The internet network was patchy and the hostel wardens insisted that we kept the torchlight to a bare minimum,” said the resident of Tollygunge.

Many of the students stayed up through the night, said Keval.

“There was no shelling in Patiala, but our friends from Punjab who had families in Pathankot were reporting about shelling there. Everyone was scared and something we had not heard or experienced in the past,” said Keval, who has returned to the city.

Several students said that some of the premises in the northern part of the country are thinning with every passing day, as students are leaving the campuses.

Surangana Banerjee has got a ticket for Tuesday, but the psychology student at OP Jindal Global University decided to travel to Delhi on Monday and stay at a friend’s place.

“I don’t see the point anymore of waiting in campus because I am feeling unsafe in Haryana. Many students are leaving, and I decided to stay at a friend’s place in Delhi before travelling back to Calcutta,” she said.

Many parents are anxiously waiting for their children to be back home, making frantic arrangements to get them safely back in the first possible flight home.

“My family and I were tensed that what if the Delhi airport shuts down, I will be stranded all alone,” said a student from Howrah who reached Calcutta on Saturday night from Sonipat.

“Students from Bengal and south India desperately wanted to come back because under the current circumstances, our hometown seems much safer than campuses in northern India. Many parents were writing to the college authorities as well,” she said.