Not Being Allowed To Board Trains: K’taka Students In Ukraine

Bengaluru, March 3: The woes of some Karnataka students stranded in the Kharkiv and other parts of war-ravaged Ukraine is not abating. They are sharing their agony, giving interviews to media, alleging that they are not being allowed to board trains and threatened at gunpoint by security guards.

Speaking to the media personnel over the phone from Ukraine, Harshita said, “The security guards at Kyiv railway station are not allowing Indians to board the trains. They are allowing Ukrainian people. First they allow children, then women and men, in this order. If Indians question them, the guards are threatening us with the guns.” She said some of the Indian students were pushed out of the trains, saying that they were ‘treating them as such because India has not helped Ukraine’.

Moreover, the Ukrainian authorities are fleecing people by demanding 100 to 200 dollars per head to board trains, she further said. After knowing about train arrangements, the Indians students who were taking shelter in the bunkers for the last six days, made their way to the railway station by walking, but they were not allowed, Harshita said. “We missed 8 am and 12.30 pm trains,” she added.

After missing the trains, the students walked back to the shelter situated 11 kms away from the railway station amidst heavy shelling, Harshita said. “On our way back, we saw missiles hitting the buildings. That was very scary and we ran for at least 6 kms, carrying our bags containing laptops,” she further said. The snacks are getting over and the students have not had water since morning, the Indian student said, adding that about 1000 students have been put up in three hostel buildings.

“At least four people have been accommodated in one room,” she said. “We have been instructed to switch off the lights and not venture out. If we are not rescued now, there is hardly any chance of our survival,” she said.

Meanwhile, a similar ordeal was narrated by a Chalgeri-based woman about his son who is stranded in Kharkiv. She said her son called her and informed about his plight at the railway station. “My son told me that the Ukranians were not allowing Indian students to board the trains. After he missed the trains, he had to return to his shelter along with thousands of students. The situation is grim,” she said. Chalageri is the village where Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar hailed from. He was killed in a shelling three days back.