Students recount tales of hunger and thirst after escape from Kashmir

Out of food and water for days, 36 engineering students from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have tales of strength and survival to share of their experience of the worst floods witnessed by the KashmirValley in a century.

These students of NIT, Srinagar claim to have travelled through one of most deadliest terrains, parched and empty stomach, and survived the ordeals to safely reach the national capital on Thursday.

“It was very adventurous and horrible for the last one week since rains started to batter Srinagar,” said Vipin, a B.Tech student hailing from Hyderabad while narrating their battle with floods.

He said that flood waters reached till the first floor of their college premises, forcing them to vacate it at the earliest.

With their institution resembling an island after torrential rains lashed Jammu and Kashmir, a group of students from AP and Telangana decided to take “fleecing” cabs to reach Leh, as the road connecting Jammu was closed.

“We travelled for about 20 hours by road to reach Leh, which is one of the deadliest terrains. We had little food, too little water. But, still we could finally reach Leh,” Girish, another student from Andhra Pradesh said.

The students said, district authorities accommodated them in a public school and also made arrangements to issue tickets for them to fly down to Delhi early Thursday.

However, some more students belonging to the two states are still stuck in Kashmir, the students claimed.

When contacted, Andhra Pradesh special representative, K Rama Mohana Rao said steps are being taken by the state government to rescue all the people stranded in the flood ravaged state.

“We are airlifting those close to the Srinagar airport...We are taking all steps for rescuing all Telugu people,” he added.