An international tour to boost travel history and “strengthen” passports to later help in securing an admission to a foreign university or settle into one. This promise is what drove two young Indian men to book a tour to Russia. But the tour, around the New Year, went sour when they found themselves trapped in an unknown place.
The duo from rural parts of Haryana and Punjab are among the 20 men allegedly been duped in the name of a job or a student visa by travel agents based in India and Russia to be forcefully inducted in the Russian army to fight the war against Ukraine.
Harsh Kumar (19) and Gagandeep Singh (23) had booked the tour to Russia online. Though the tours were booked separately, the families claimed, it was later found that seven such youths had come on a tourist visa and found themselves tricked and trapped together by a travel agent in Russia. The agent, on the pretext of taking them to Belarus, left them midway on a highway. The young men were caught by the Russian police for not having the necessary documentation.
The seven men, including Harsh, had released the now-viral video of them wearing Russian army uniforms on March 4, after which the government took note of the incident. Of the seven, two are from Haryana while five belong to Punjab.
On March 8, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) released a statement saying 20-odd Indian nationals have been duped by agents on “false pretexts and promises” and are being deployed at frontlines in the Russia-Ukraine war zone against their wishes, “putting their lives in grave danger”.
It also said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has bust a human trafficking network wherein the traffickers had been operating as an organised network and were luring Indian nationals through social media channels such as YouTube, and also through their local contacts/agents for highly paid jobs in Russia. It also stated that travel agents were duping Indians on the pretext of admissions to dubious private universities in Russia, but not in government or publicly known ones.
These men, now stranded in a training camp in Russia, around 200 km from the war-zone in Ukraine, have been waiting for the Indian Embassy to get in touch with them in the hope that they will be rescued and taken home soon. The Indian men have been stranded there for nearly three months now.
Harsh’s brother Sahil Kumar told News18 that he spoke to his brother briefly on March 13 at 4pm. “They are in a far-off place in the country where there are network issues. He has to go to a particular point where there is some reception to make a call. He had fallen sick in the cold and initially the Russian training camp where they are placed didn’t give him any medicines. Only yesterday, he said that he felt slightly better. He told me that the 15-day weapon training is over and they are now staying in bunkers, constantly living under the fear that they might be sent out to the war zone anytime,” said Sahil, who belongs to Sambhli village in Haryana’s Karnal district.
Harsh told his family that their passports and other documents were taken away by the local police and they were kept locked in a place for three-four days before being handed over to the Russian army, who made them forcefully sign a contract to serve as a helper in the force for a year, after which they will be released.
“My brother and others who had gone on the tour had hired a tour guide who told them that he will show them Belarus as well within this tour. Since they didn’t know that Belarus is another country and requires a separate visa for travel, they just went along. The tour guide later asked them for more money for the trip. When the group said they don’t have more money, he left them stranded on a highway within Russia, after which the local police caught them. They were initially locked up in a place without being given any food for several days,” said Sahil, 21, the elder of the siblings who helps their father run a grocery store.
Later, he added, their passports, phones and other documents were taken away by the Russian army, which placed two conditions before them – jail for 10 years or sign a contract to work as a helper in the army for a year. Harsh and others ended up signing the contract, which was in the Russian language.
“It turned out to be a lie since they were then sent to an army camp, given the green-coloured army uniforms and gear, given guns and were put on weapons training. Soon after signing the contract, they were given their phones back, which is when Harsh got in touch with us to tell us his situation and that he just wants to come back home. He told us that they could barely handle such heavy weaponry and are afraid to use the guns,” said Sahil.
On December 25, said Sahil, Harsh had boarded a flight from Delhi to Moscow. He was to return on January 5, a flight that he could never board. He got the tourist visa, which was for around two months and expired on February 22. Harsh is a Class 12 pass and had not enrolled in a college yet.
“He just wanted to go out of India to travel as he was told by go-abroad consultancies that an international tour will help strengthen his passport. We would have sent him to study to UK or any other country abroad. It was easy to get a tourist visa to Russia, he was told, and so he booked his tour around the New Year. We could have never imagined that a tour could cost him his freedom and maybe even his life if he is sent to war. In the beginning, we didn’t say anything about his situation to our mother. She has been broken since the news came out. Nobody knows if he will ever be able to come back. A CBI official had called my father yesterday (March 13) to get details of Harsh, but that is it,” he said
Sahil and his family have been doing the rounds of different local authorities, including the, police for help. They sent an application to the Indian Embassy in Moscow, which replied to them asking for some documents and just told them that they are in touch with Russian local authorities. “We haven’t received any response from the Indian Embassy since. A brief phone call from Harsh every other day is the only lifeline we are living by for now,” he said.
A Mumbai-based consultant who runs an agency in different cities that helps students go abroad to study in countries like Russia said that 99.9% of the universities there are run by the government. “Only a few are private universities. So the scams that are happening from within Russia are of a different kind and those who are being misled by unscrupulous travel agents are potential students who either want a work visa in a country or just a seat in a foreign university. They are from the rural parts of India so are comparatively easier to be lured into such promises,” the consultant said, requesting anonymity.
In a similar case, Gagandeep’s mother Balwinder Kaur has been eagerly waiting for her son’s phone call every day. The family has been shattered since and his father, who has been unwell for some time, said Kaur has gone deeper into depression.
Kaur said her son, who had passed Class 12, wanted to go abroad to study and was told that a foreign trip would help boost his passport for international travel by some consultancy.
“We too wanted him to go out and study in a good university, but didn’t know that this thing of strengthening one’s passport could lead him in such trouble. He had booked a trip to Russia online. We don’t know the website or the person he booked it through. He called us first around January saying that he was scammed and was instead taken to the Ukraine border where the war is on. He told me they don’t get proper food and the cold is unbearable. He just calls for like a few seconds and talks in hushed tones saying the Russian army seniors were around and could again take his phone away,” said Kaur, who lives in a village in Punjab’s Gurdaspur.
The local police, political heads and CBI officials have been visiting their house since. “There has been no assurance of his rescue as such. I just want them to save my son somehow. He has been saying they can send him to war anytime,” said Kaur.