Kashmiri youth deputed into Russian war wants to join Indian Army

Pulwama: Aazad Yousuf Kumar who is among more than ninety Indians allegedly misled to join the Russian army and moved to the Ukraine warfront last fall wants to join the Indian Army to defend and serve his own country to pay it back for “saving me from the jaws of death”.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), 45 of the 91 Indians including Aazad who were duped into fighting for the Russian forces in the country's war with Ukraine have returned home since and that the efforts to get the others released as well and bring them home have been intensified. The Indian authorities have, however, also said that several of them including Zahoor Sheikh, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s frontier district Kupwara, are still missing whereas half a dozen have fallen prey to the war traps.

On his return to his picturesque village house located on a slope, about 25-km east of Pulwama town, Aazad was called to the area police station and separately to an Army camp for “debriefing”. At the Army camp, he told an officer that he had a strong desire to join the force to pay back to the nation for saving his life. Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to Moscow in July, raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin, Russia decided to discharge all Indians working in its army.

“Some people were telling us he will not return home and, if he does, it would be in a coffin only,” said Aazad’s mother Raja Bano. “They proved wrong. When he entered the (house) compound I wept a lot. We were telling people that we trust in God and He preserved our honour. But we must acknowledge the fact that Modiji also ran to and fro. Aazad has returned hale, and hearty is because of Modiji’s effort,” she told this newspaper while sitting with her 32-yar-old son on the carpeted floor in the corner of a tiny room of their house here.

“The Army officer smiled and said some encouraging words, but he did not commit himself for anything,” Aazad said. A senior Army official said that since Aazad has already crossed the upper age limit for joining the regular Army, he can still don the uniform and serve the nation as a Territorial Army officer if he meets the educational qualification and physical and medical standards and other eligibility conditions for the commission.

Aazad said he spent about nine months on the warfront and “every day there was like hell.” He said, “We were just counting the days; not knowing when death will strike us. It was extremely dangerous there. Even though we were in the ‘safe zone’, attacks would take place on a daily basis there too. Particularly, it was very difficult to escape the drone strikes.”

He confirmed that he and most other Indians who were trapped in the Russia-Ukraine warfront were lured by a YouTube video posted by a Dubai-based recruiting agency that charged them huge amounts of money on the pretext of getting them jobs of ‘helpers’ in the Russian army and promised them a high salary and permanent residency in Russia after six months but on reaching Moscow they were taken to the warfront where they were forced to fight as mercenaries.

“Ours was a group of seven people. After spending one night in Moscow, we were handed over to the Russian army which moved us to a place called Kostroma, about 400-km away from the (Russian) capital. They provided us with security, and it was when we realised that we had been trapped. But they assured us there is no danger to our lives and that each one of us would be assigned a helper's job only,” Aazad said.

Their next stop was Ryazan, some 800-km further away. “We stayed there for one night. Next day, we were flown to a place called Luhans’k” where they were trained on light weapons, but Aazad was injured by misfire from his own weapon. He was quickly evacuated to a military hospital where he spent eighteen days. “It was on the sixth day of our training in the use of light weapons that I received a bullet wound in my left foot. I had not touched or even seen a gun. After being discharged from the hospital they took me back to the army camp where I took rest. After ten days, I was taken from south to north Ukraine. The place is called Novhorod Siverskyy,” he recalled.

Hemil Ashwinbhai Mangukiya, a 23-year-old youth of Surat (Gujarat) who too was allegedly duped into joining the Wagner Group, officially known as PMC Wagner, which is a Russian state-funded private military company, and fighting against Ukraine and Aazad became friends during their stay on the warfront. Mangukiya was killed in a Ukrainian airstrike in the Donetsk region on February 21. “He was taken beyond where we were deployed- about five to six kilometres from the frontline. He died after being struck by a drone. There was another person (31-year-old Mohammed Asfan, a resident of Hyderabad). After being imparted training for twenty-two days, he was taken straight to the warfront. He received bullet wounds in his foot and hand followed by a drone attack, and he too was killed”, Aazad said.

He said that his happiness knew no bounds when, on September 6, he was informed by the Russian military authorities that he may pack up as his contract has been cancelled. With his returning home, the family including his wife and minor son rediscovered the happiness with which they had lived together until nine months ago.

While the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into a human trafficking network extending from New Delhi to Tamil Nadu and that used social media platforms and local agents to lure people to Russia by offering them lucrative salaries to work in Russian as security helpers and promising them Russian citizenship is going on, the MEA has, once again, advised the Indian citizens to be cautious and not allow themselves to be trapped in such rackets.