Hoshiarpur youth returns home from Russia

Gurpreet Singh, a youth from Harta village in Hoshiarpur, who was stuck in Russia, has returned home.

Though the family was reluctant to talk about it, his uncle Kashmir Singh said he returned around a week ago.

Village sarpanch Balbir Singh said he had come to know that Gurpreet had returned from Russia and he had also recently seen him a couple of times.

A villager, requesting anonymity, said, "I have repeatedly seen him in the village in the past week. He keeps half of his face covered. Since the day he returned, the family rarely comes out of their house and don't talk about his return.”

He said they have come to know only this much that there had been a blast in Russia when he was in combat, and it had badly injured one side of his face for which the treatment is going on. "We have come to know that he was admitted to a hospital in Russia for treatment of his injuries, and from there he escaped and secretly returned to India. How did he make it back to India is not known, he added.

In March this year, Gurpreet, along with some other Indian youths, had, in a video sent to his family, alleged that they were forcibly recruited into the Russian army after going on a tourist visa to celebrate New Year there. He and a group of Indian youths in combat uniform had alleged in the video that they were threatened with 10 years in jail for visa violation if they didn't join Russian army. After only 15 days of “training”, he along with other youths was sent to fight for Russia in the Ukraine war.

His brother, Amrit, had said at that time that the police had threatened them that for violating visa norms, they would have to go to jail for 10 years. To evade jail term, they would have to sign an agreement to join the Russian army for one year under which they would be given small jobs like helper, cook or driver and would not be sent to the battlefield. They signed the agreement and were taken to the army training centre near Moscow. There, they came to know that they had been recruited into the army to fight. After 15 days of training there, they were sent to a camp and were told that they would be sent to Ukraine to fight.