With almost a month into the West Asia conflict, people in Iran’s capital, Tehran, have started fearing for the worse. And ambiguous statements from Washington and threatening comments from Tel Aviv are adding to their predicament. Iranians living in India told TOI on Friday their dear ones back home have started moving out of the capital’s residential areas as there is a strong buzz among the population of a ground assault by the “enemy” in parts of their country in the coming days.“There is panic. People are deeply worried. No one knows whether the current talk of (ceasefire) talks would be fruitful or lead to some kind of a pause in air strikes by the US and Israel… Many families including mine, who live in Tehran, have started leaving their homes for ‘safer’ rural areas up north,” said Roya, an Iranian national.Living in Mumbai for the past few years with her husband, she added her family and friends are not waiting for the next 10 days (as announced by US president Donald Trump) before the US-Israel starts “something more offensive”. She said some of her family members have decided to move to their ancestral place in a quiet village far away from Tehran.Reza, an Iranian national living in Bangaluru for about four years, said residents have rationed groceries and essentials. “They have witnessed intense bombing and are scared,” he said.“We had learnt our lessons from the Iraq war. It was a part of culture in those days to collect rations, especially dry ones, for at least two months. As of now, there has been no food shortage in Tehran, but people there have stopped trusting Trump… We can see every night and day how our cities are being bombed. They can start a ground assault in my country any moment,” added Reza, whose family called him Thursday for “about two minutes”.“One major problem we are facing is the lack of connectivity,” Reza said. “Incoming calls into Iran from abroad are still not allowed…”However, govt of Iran has “relaxed communication blackouts by allowing video calls on social media apps”. “Thankfully, I managed to see the faces of my family via a video call on Bale App on Friday after almost a month. We couldn’t talk though, we only wept. Only God knows what will happen next,” said an Iranian woman in Delhi.
