A Hyderabad man, tricked into fighting Ukraine's war, dies in Russia

Hyderabad/New Delhi:

An Indian who was tricked into joining Russia's war against Ukraine has been killed. In a post on X on Wednesday, the Indian Embassy in Moscow confirmed the death of Mohammad Asfan from Hyderabad, but did not say why or say what he was doing in the country.

“We have learned of the tragic death of Indian citizen Shri Muhammad Asfan. We are in contact with the family and Russian authorities. The mission will make efforts to send his remains to India,” the embassy said in the post.

We have learned of the tragic death of Indian citizen Shri Muhammad Asfan. We are in contact with the family and Russian authorities. The mission will make efforts to send his mortal remains to India.@MEAIndia

– India in Russia (@IndEmbMoscow) March 6, 2024

The family of Afsan, who is among nearly two dozen Indians transferred to Russia on the pretext of getting high-paying jobs, said they were informed of his death by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

Owaisi was among the first to highlight the issue last month. On February 21, the AIMIM leader said he had written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar about men from states like Telangana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh who were cheated in this way and forced to participate in the war. .

On February 29, the Ministry of External Affairs said that at least 20 Indians trapped in Russia had contacted Indian authorities and the government was doing everything possible to bring them back.

Net-Savvy Proxy

Several of the men trapped in Russia were allegedly cheated by a Dubai-based agent, Faisal Khan, who runs a YouTube channel called 'Baba Vlogs'. The channel has more than 3,000 subscribers, and in one of his videos, Khan showed seven passports and said: “We work with the Russian army and seven people have obtained work permits for the country.”

The father of one of the young men, Abdul Naeem, said last month that his son and three of his friends were working in Dubai and had contacted Khan. The agent had promised them high-paying jobs as security guards in Russia and took Rs 3 lakh from them. They were taken to Russia in December last year, then pushed into war after being tricked into signing some documents in Russian.

The Indian men, some of whom received basic weapons training, were allegedly deployed in and around Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv, Donetsk and Mariupol. A man from Kashmir was also shot in the leg. Accounts differ on whether they were fighting as part of the Russian army or a mercenary organization, the Wagner Group.

Seven more calls for help

NDTV reported on Tuesday that seven men from Punjab and Haryana had appealed to the Indian government for help, claiming that they were forced to go to war against Ukraine.

Harsh, 19, from Haryana's Karnal district, recorded a video showing that he and the other men were taken to Belarus by an agent who then left them there, after they were unable to give him more money. He said they were handed over to the Russian authorities, who forced them to sign the documents. “Now they are forcing us to fight in the war against Ukraine,” Harsh says in the video.

The teenager's family said he went to look for work and was arrested in Russia. His mother said: “He told us that Russian soldiers arrested him, threatened him with 10 years in prison, and recruited him. He said he was forced to receive military training.”