Iranians in India spending sleepless nights over family’s wellbeing

As missiles pummelled buildings, and explosions shook their foundations, and the haze of the Israel-Iran conflict continued to create confusion over a ceasefire, Iranians who have made India their home, have been spending sleepless nights, worried about their families.

Glued to their smartphones, they recount scouring the internet for news from their home country, and scrolling, scraping information shared on social media, to put pieces of information together. From calls that did not go through, to anxiously waiting for replies to messages sent by means of internet-based messaging apps that find themselves delayed in transit, it has been a harrowing fortnight.

Fatemeh Salami (name changed), who moved to India nearly two decades ago with her children, has family in Tehran. A resident of Hyderabad, she says that her elder sister, uncles and cousins and their children, had to flee the Iranian capital as soon as Israel, which has been bombing Gaza, began its attack on her country, to the northern region of Iran. “Messages do not get delivered on time because of continuous problems with the internet. If I send messages today, my family gets them late. Then I receive a response a day or two or three days later,” she says. “Most of them have temporarily moved to other places like Mazandaran and Gilan provinces. Of course I am deeply worried because Tehran was bombed. Their homes, thankfully, have not been damaged.”

Mina Eftekhari (name changed on request), another Iranian, described the last 12 or 13 days as a “stressful time”. Having moved to Hyderabad to pursue an education nearly 15 years ago, then returning, only to have made India her second home.

Ms Eftekhari says that her parents and elder brother continue live in the Iranian city of Shiraz. “Though Shiraz has not seen attacks like Tehran, there was some problem near the mountains where there are some defence installations. My family was forced to move to another location as they are near a sensitive area,” Ms Eftekhari said. What has compounded her anxiety, is not being able to reach her family on time.

While there some Iranians have disagreements with the present regime, they opined that trying to achieve a change in government by means of external forces is wrong, and counter productive. “It is for the people to decide,” one said.

In the recent past, the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Hyderabad issued a press release in which they condemned Israel’s “blatant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity through military attacks on multiple locations, including residential areas”. The Consulate General also shared a form in which it sought statements of solidarity with Iran from general public.