Embassy continues to function 24X7 with help line for Indians in Ukraine
Darpan News Desk IANS, 18 Mar, 2022 12:30 PM
New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) The Indian Embassy in Ukraine, which has been temporarily relocated from Kiev to Warsaw due to the fighting, on Friday said that it has been functioning round the clock for Indian nationals in Ukraine who are trying to seek assistance and they can contact it through email and help line numbers.
In an advisory, it also circulated the email: cons1.kyiv@mea.gov.in and the official numbers- +3809333559958,+919205290802,+917428022564.
Soon after the war broke out between Ukraine and Russia on February 24, the majority of the Indian diplomats had moved from the Ukrainian capital to Lviv which is close to the Ukraine-Poland border. But the Indian Embassy in Kiev was kept functional, with a few officials stationed there to coordinate with the Ukrainian authorities on the evacuation of Indians from the country.
The External Affairs Ministry recently decided to temporarily shift the embassy in Warsaw after the Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian city increased as by that time, the evacuation of the Indian nationals was almost done.
In a statement on March 13, the MEA said: "In view of the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Ukraine, including attacks in the western parts of the country, it has been decided that the Indian Embassy in Ukraine will be temporarily relocated in Poland."
The situation will be reassessed in the light of further developments, it added.
This advisory, prepared by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, warns about aerial raids, missile attacks, artillery shelling, small arms and gunfire, grenade explosions and 'Molotov cocktails', including by local people/militia.
The flight IX-1202 with 183 passengers, including an infant, arrived at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at around 5.40 a.m. The evacuees were received by Union Minister of State for Railways Raosaheb Danve-Patil with flowers and words of solace as they trooped out lugging their belongings.
"Indian students are being pushed out of trains, they are not allowed to board, if questioned they are being assaulted and guns are being pointed at them,". There are many incidents where Indians were asked to leave bunkers. Ukraninans are telling Indian students that India is not supporting them and why should they help them?
The two leaders reviewed the situation, especially in the city of Kharkiv where many Indian students are stuck, and discussed the safe evacuation of Indian nationals from the conflict areas, an MEA statement said.
Officials said the administration was in touch with the families of 32 students belonging to the Jammu division who are stranded in Ukraine. Officials said nine evacuation flights have so far brought back around 2,000 Indians stranded in Ukraine since February 26.
Bhullar was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011 in the 1993 Delhi bomb blasts case. In March 2014, however, the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment owing to his ill health.
