The Union government has informed High Court of Kerala on Monday that steps are being taken to ensure the safety and repatriation of all Indians who are stranded in Ukraine.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had compiled the details of over 19,000 Indians in that country and steps were being taken to repatriate them to India, free of cost. Four Union Ministers would be sent to countries bordering Ukraine, to coordinate this, submitted S. Manu, Assistant Solicitor General.
The Centre made the submission on a petition filed by the Kerala High Court Advocates Association and a lawyer-couple, seeking a directive to the MEA to take proactive steps to repatriate students from Kerala who were stranded in Ukraine. The lawyer couple said that their daughter Thekkedath Athira Shaji, a medical student, was among those stranded in war-torn Ukraine. The war began as she was waiting at the airport. They were unable to make any contact with their daughter since February 24.
The petitioners further sought a directive to the Centre to provide adequate financial assistance, for enabling the Embassy of India to repatriate the students from Kerala who were stranded in Kyiv.
The Assistant Solicitor General also submitted that the Ministry of External Affairs was in constant contact with the Embassies of Ukraine and neighbouring countries and that talks were held with the Russian Ambassador to India who assured the Russian government’s cooperation.
The State Attorney N. Manoj Kumar submitted that the Chief Minister had already written to the Prime Minister and that the State was willing to meet the expenses of bringing students back to Kerala from anywhere in India. He added that the State government had a very limited role to play in facilitating travel from Ukraine to India.
The petitioners said the general instruction for evacuation given by the Indian embassy to students and other Indians was that they must travel from wherever they were, to the border of a neighbouring country like Romania or Hungary. A transit visa would be issued after inspecting documents like passport, which could be used to board an Air India flight to return to India.
Even as the Indian Embassy was coordinating the repatriation, the reality was that these students and others must bear the entire expense and risk of travelling through a war zone to the nearest border. And after all this ordeal of making it to the border, Indians were faced with mass discrimination and torture by the Ukrainian Army and border patrol, they said, referring to troops firing into the air and resorting to pepper spray usage on them. In addition, Indians were being made to wait for hours in extreme cold weather, which had resulted in them going without sleep and food. Many fainted due to these adversities. The students were facing such treatment since Indian Embassy officials were absent on such border posts.
In this circumstance, the petitioners sought a court directive to the Centre to send its officials to the border crossings, to assist Indian students to cross the border and to effectively communicate with Ukrainian personnel.
