Photos: MBBS students heave sigh of relief after reaching Delhi from Ukraine

The students said they worried about the disruption in their studies and had returned only on the request of their anxious parents. (TOI photos by Rajesh Mehta)

Those with online classes were better off than the others who had practical classes still going.

They weren’t too happy that air tickets, normally Rs 30,000 one way, had suddenly doubled.

Most of the parents had come from Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh to pick up their children.

All students returning to India were asked to pay fees for a full year before being allowed to leave.

We were told to leave the country because of the tense situation, said Malhotra, a native of Vrindavan in UP.

India has deployed Dreamliner B-787 aircraft for carrying out this special operation under which flights were made operational from Kharkiv in Ukraine to New Delhi.

I believe that medical classes cannot be properly conducted in online mode. But given the situation, we could not wait for the shooting to start, a student said.

For the past one week, we have been hearing so many rumours about a possible invasion. This was scary and I couldn’t focus on studies or other work, one of the students said.