Twenty-one-year-old Sainikhesh Ravichandran always wanted to be a part of the army. A student of aerospace engineering, Sainikhesh had twice attempted to join the Indian Army, but was rejected due to his height. So, when the government in war-stricken Ukraine called upon foreign nationals in the country to help them resist invading Russian troops, Sainikhesh decided to volunteer.
Sainikhesh had been studying aerospace engineering in Kharkiv and is in his fifth year. He hails from Subramaniyampalayam near Thudiyalur in Coimbatore. After war broke out in Ukraine, Sainikhesh could not be communicated for a few days.
However, days later, Sainikhesh’s parents, Jhansi Lakshmi and her husband Ravichandran, were flabbergasted and worried to find out that their eldest son Sainikhesh is fighting a war in a foreign country.
They alerted the Indian Embassy as soon as they found out. Sources in the Tamil Nadu police have told IANS that a group of Central Intelligence Bureau officers visited the residence of Sainikhesh a couple of days ago and collected details about him. They also asked why he had joined the Ukrainian forces.
His parents, according to police officers, have told the intelligence sleuths that Sainikhesh had a passion for the military and armed training. His room in Coimbatore is full of photographs of Indian military and officers, they say. Sainikhesh’s family says he told them a few days before the war broke out that he had secured a part-time job in a video game developing company in Kharkiv.
However, it was only when intelligence sleuths visited them that the family came to know that Sainikhesh had joined the Ukraine forces.
His father Ravichandran told IANS, “I am terribly upset and I have requested the government of India to bring my son back to India. He had called home a few days ago, and he had said that he was safe but he did not listen to our requests to come back."
This development comes as thousands of Indian students, who were stranded in Ukraine, continue to be brought back to India. Many parents are anxious for their children’s lives, and have questioned the delayed response by the Union government in bringing back the students trapped in the crossfire. Only last week, on Tuesday, 1 March, a 21-year-old medical student Naveen Gyanagoudar was killed in Russian shelling while waiting in line to buy food outside a supermarket in Kharkiv, the same city where Sainikhesh lives.
A day after Gyangoudar’s death, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine asked all Indian nationals who were in Kharkiv to leave the city immediately, and reach the neighbouring cities of Pesochin, Babai, and Bezlyudovka by 6 pm that day.
(With IANS inputs.)
(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute.)
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