SHILLONG/ NEW DELHI, Feb 28: Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma on Monday said the state government has received information that some more students from Meghalaya have managed to cross the Ukrainian border safely.
Sangma said he spoke with the Foreign Secretary during his visit to New Delhi and submitted a list containing the names of more than 30 students from the state who are studying in Ukraine.
“I am in touch with the Union Home Secretary and the External Affairs Minister. I will also be coordinating personally with all the four Union Ministers who have been asked to station in the countries bordering Ukraine to ensure that all the students from Meghalaya are brought back safely,” the chief minister said.
Meanwhile, the External Affairs Ministry on Monday assured BJP leader AL Hek that the Centre was doing its best to safely evacuate Indian students including those from Meghalaya from war-hit Ukraine.
The assurance was given to Hek who met both Union Minister of State for External Affairs, GK Reddy and Cabinet Minister for Law and Justice, Kiren Rijiju and handed them over the list of stranded students from the state, most of whom are girls.
Rijiju is in charge of evacuation of stranded Indians including students along with three other Union Ministers.
Hek also submitted a request letter to External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, urging him to intervene and get the helpless students safely evacuated from the war-torn European nation.
The Meghalaya government on its part has advised the students to carry their passports, some cash and warm clothes while the state and the Centre are making all out efforts to rescue them from Ukraine.
Some Indian students have alleged that they were harassed at the border with Poland by Ukrainian guards. They say the guards beat them with rods and even pulled the hair of female students and attempted to stop them from crossing over.
First student reaches home safely
Ishika Debnath, a second-year MBBS student of Bukovanian State Medical University, Chernivsti, became the first student to return home safely from Ukraine on Sunday.
Ishika, a resident of Laitumkhrah, was among the second batch of 240 Indian students who were evacuated through the Romanian border on February 25. She is the only student from Meghalaya to be evacuated so far.
Narrating her experience on Monday, Ishika revealed that it was not easy to cross the border since they did not have necessary documents with them. “We did not have any visas. It took a look of time since documents were being prepared at the border itself,” she said.
According to her, there was a lot of checking since the students only carried passports and temporary residential certificates and did not have visas.
She thanked the Government of India and the Indian Embassy for making efforts to ensure that students are able to return home safely.
Ishika said she had booked her flight ticket on February 17 following advisories from the Embassy but cancelled her ticket since offline classes were expected to start.
“Most of us did not anticipate that the situation will escalate. We were in a safer place since my university is in eastern Ukraine and quite far from the war zone,” Ishika said.
Asked, she said the travelling expenses and logistics were funded by the government until they landed in India.
Ishika’s father, Shankar Debnath, was a happy man. He said the family was relieved that their daughter had returned home safely.
He was grateful to the Indian Embassy and the government for their efforts in evacuating the Indian students from Ukraine.