KOLKATA: The death of a university mate under heavy shelling at Kharkiv in Ukraine has left scores of Bengali students living in flat bunkers and underground Metro stations without food and water as none dared to come out on streets where missiles and shells rained through the day on Tuesday.
However, there was another group of Bengali students who were jolted by the death and decided there was no point waiting for slow death hiding inside bunkers.
They packed their bags to walk for 10 kms to the nearest railway station amidst heavy shelling and then take an even longer journey towards freedom on the other side of the border at Hungary hoping to catch an evacuation flight to India at the earliest.
Contrasting pictures of fear and desperation were evident in war-torn Ukraine that witnessed first death of an Indian student on Tuesday, who had gone out to buy food for a group of juniors stuck in the hostel bunker.
“The situation is crazy over here. There is fire everywhere, siren blazing constantly and there is heavy shelling going on outside the bunker. The Russians are not even excusing civilians. We have just lost a senior and many more are missing. We don’t have any food or water now and none is allowed to go out of the bunker. We plead to the Indian government to do something and rescue us from here. The embassy is asking us to reach the border but we can’t even come out of the bunker. How are we supposed to reach the border thousands of kilometres away?” said Shabnam Begum, a resident of Jhargram and student of Kharkiv National Medical University.
Shabnam said she was hiding in hostel bunker for last six days with 150 others and have totally run out of food stock. “Fifty students had started for Hungary border but had to return due to heavy bombing on the road. The building is still shaking and I don’t know if we can come out of here alive,” she cried.
Another group of students of the same university however took the risk and headed out of the bunker following the Karnataka student Naveen Shekharappa’s death. “We were just discussing if we would leave the bunker when we heard the explosion outside the Governor house and shortly thereafter we learnt one of our university mates have died. While some insisted us to go back to the bunker but some of us were resolved to make the journey back home and so we left the bunker and started walking towards the nearest railway station, at least 10kms from the flat,” said Rupam Mondal, a fourth year student of the university and a resident of Jhargram.
Mondal and two of his mates from Bengal — Ushnish Roy from Siliguri and Asis Biswas from Jalpaiguri — walked past burning buildings, hid behind large vehicles and under Metro station platforms and building basements during a spell of shelling as they reached the Kharkiv railway station in the afternoon and boarded a packed train to Lviv.
“We need to go to Lviv and then to Uzhorod City and then to Hungary border. After crossing the border we need to head to Budapest airport to take an evacuation flight back home. It’s a long journey and I just hope we can make it that far,” said Mondal, while sitting on the luggage rack of a crowded train.
Other students like Swagata Sadhukhan of Gobardanga, Kriti Sen from North 24 Parganas, Shubhas Gorai from Malda and Sharnam Chakraborty from Nabadweep — all from Kyiv Medical University — reached Romania border on Tuesday. They are waiting for an evacuation flight from Bucharest.
Students from war zones of Kyiv and Kharkiv like Sushovan Bera and Anandya Paik from West Midnapore have also reached Romania and Hungary borders, respectively.
(With inputs from Abhilasha Mukherjee)
