Hyderabad: The neutral stand taken by the Indian Government in the on-going Ukraine war is costing the Indian students holed up there dearly. Many of them are facing the wrath of the Ukraine civilians while some are being subjected to rude behaviour and ill-treatment.
Two Hyderabadi students, Mohd Samiuddin and Ghulam Ahmed Mohiuddin Salman, who returned to the city on Monday, had a horrifying experience escaping the war torn Ukraine. Back from the jaws of death is how they feel their safe return to Hyderabad is.
“The Indian students were roughed up and pushed out of the train by the Ukrainians when we tried to board the train at the Kiev railway station. Why has your government adopted a neutral stand when Russia is bombarding us? They asked us,” said Salman and Samiuddin.
Narrating their nightmarish experience to press persons here on Tuesday, the Hyderabadi students said they and other Indian students faced the worst kind of ordeal. Officials of the Indian Embassy did not help them at all as long as they were in Ukraine. In fact they asked them to ‘take the risk on your own’ if they wanted to leave the war zone. “It was only after they crossed the Ukrainian border that the Indian Embassy extended help,” Salman said.
While Salman has been pursuing medical studies in Ukraine since 2018, his friend, Samiuddin has been there since 2019. They have almost completed their five year medical course at the Uzhhorod Medical University and in a few months they would have become full-fledged doctors had the war not broken out.
It was a fortnight long ordeal for Salman and Samiuddin before they returned home safe. It was such a harrowing experience that they would remember it every moment of their lives. It was on February 22 that they abruptly left Uzhhorod as the war clouds gathered over the city. They had no time to collect even their certificates from the university as they left in a hurry to Kiev. They had a scheduled flight on February 24 to India. They reached the Kiev Airport at 5-00 am and were waiting for their flight. But as ill luck would have it, there was a blast on the Airport runway and all the passengers were evacuated. A government bus dropped them at the bus stop as there were no taxis plying. They found out the address of the Kiev Medical University Hostel and headed there after walking 3 km. After some questioning they were allowed inside the hostel which had some 300 Indian students. Here they stayed in the hostel basement till February 28. It was a tortuous time out there as often the ventilators and lights were switched off when Russian shelling intensified.
“There were no food supplies and whatever groceries were available in the hostel was shared by all,” recalled Salman and Samiuddin and said often they survived on burgers and such things.
There was a three-day curfew in Kiev and when it was lifted, the Hyderabadi duo and other students decided to leave and rush to the border. But they were little aware of the problems ahead. At the Kiev railway station they were not allowed to board the train as the Ukrainian civilians were angry at the ‘neutral stand’ of the Indian government. But somehow they forced their way into the train forming a human chain. Once inside they were pushed around and hit. Their mobile phones were snatched as someone tried to take a video. For the next nine hours they travelled standing in the train and reached Lviv city in western Ukraine, which touches the Poland border. On March 1 they left Lviv and came back to Uzhhorod since the Poland border was closed. The next day they reached Zahony railway station in eastern Hungary and arrived in Budapest where they spent one day. Then they came to Mezotur city and spent two nights and one day there. Officials of the Indian Embassy came into contact and helped them out. They were taken to the Budapest Airport on March 5 morning where they boarded the Air Asia flight to Dubai and from there came to Delhi. In Delhi they were taken to the Telangana Bhavan.
Salman’s father, Hakim Ghulam Mohammed, spoke about the agony and pain suffered by parents of both families when their children were caught in the war zone. “We could only pray to Allah for their safe return,” he said and appealed to the Telangana government and the Union government to ensure that the students returning from Ukraine were accommodated in the medical colleges here so that they did not lose their academic year. He hoped the government would respond positively.
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