Twenty-one-year-old Sainikhesh Ravichandran always wanted to join the military and had twice attempted to join the Indian Army but was rejected due to his height. So, when the government in war-stricken Ukraine, where he was studying, called upon foreign nationals in the country to help them resist invading Russian troops, Sainikhesh decided to volunteer.
Sainikhesh, who hails from Subramaniyampalayam near Thudiyalur in Coimbatore, was doing his fifth year aerospace engineering at Kharkiv National University. After war broke out, he could not be reached for a few days. However, days later, his parents, Jhansi Lakshmi and Ravichandran, were flabbergasted and worried to find out that their eldest son is fighting a war in a foreign country. They alerted the Indian Embassy as soon as they found out. Sources in the Tamil Nadu police told IANS that a group of Central Intelligence Bureau officers visited Sainikhesh’s residence a couple of days ago and collected details about him. They also asked why he had joined the Ukrainian forces.
His parents, according to police officers, told the intelligence sleuths that Sainikhesh had a passion for the military and armed training. His room in Coimbatore is full of photographs of the Indian military and Army officers, they said. He had informed his family a few days before the war broke out that he had secured a part-time job in a video game development company in Kharkiv.
However, it was only when intelligence sleuths visited them that the family came to know that Sainikhesh had joined the Ukraine forces. His father Ravichandran told IANS, “I’m terribly upset and I have requested the government to bring my son back to India. He had called home a few days ago, he said that he was safe but he did not listen to our requests to come back.”
This development comes as thousands of Indian students who were stranded in Ukraine continue to be brought back to India. Many parents are anxious for their children’s lives, and have questioned the delayed response by the Union government in bringing back the students trapped in the crossfire. Only last week, on Tuesday, March 1, a 21-year-old medical student Naveen Gyanagoudar was killed in Russian shelling while waiting in line to buy food outside a supermarket in Kharkiv, the same city where Sainikhesh lives. A day after Naveen’s death, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine asked all Indian nationals who were in the city to leave immediately and reach the neighbouring cities of Pesochin, Babai and Bezlyudovka by 6 pm that day.
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(With IANS inputs)