India on Tuesday urged its citizens in Iran to stay where they are for the next 48 hours and avoid all electrical and military installations, hours after US President Donald Trump warned that “Iranian civilization will die tonight,” further worsening the crisis in West Asia.
Urgent advice from the Indian Embassy in Tehran urged Indian citizens to remain at home and coordinate any movement on highways with the mission.
About 9,000 Indian nationals, most of them students, were in Iran when military strikes by Israel and the United States sparked conflict in the region on February 28. Asim Mahajan, Additional Secretary (Gulf) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said in a press conference on Tuesday that 1,862 Indians, including 935 students and 472 fishermen, have so far returned from Iran via Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The warnings directed Indian citizens still in Iran to “stay where they are for the next 48 hours, avoid all electrical and military installations and upper floors of multi-storey buildings, stay indoors, and strictly coordinate any movement on the highway with the embassy.”
The United States has repeatedly threatened in recent days to target civilian infrastructure such as bridges and power plants in Iran.
Indian citizens sheltering in “hotels rented by embassies should remain at home while maintaining regular contact with on-site embassy teams,” the advisory said. Indian citizens have also been urged to monitor official updates on the situation.
Scores of Indian students from cities like Tehran and Isfahan have been shifted to safer locations and are currently staying in hotels rented by the embassy.
Indian citizens were forced to leave Iran through land border crossings with Armenia or Azerbaijan due to the closure of Iranian airspace since the beginning of the conflict.
After another US-imposed deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz and reach an agreement to end hostilities, Trump made another extreme threat on social media: “An entire civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want this to happen, but it probably will.”
Meanwhile, Trump expressed hope that an agreement could be reached, saying “something wonderfully revolutionary could happen” in light of what he described as “complete and comprehensive regime change” in Iran.
Trump’s deadline is scheduled to expire at 8pm ET (5.30am IST on Wednesday).
