Kin: Naveen was killed when he stepped out to fetch food

Haveri (Karnataka), March 1

Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagouda, India’s first tragic casualty in the ongoing military offensive in Ukraine, died when he stepped out of a bunker to fetch food, his relative said, while another concerned parent wanted PM Narendra Modi to ensure a ceasefire in the eastern European nation till their wards return home safe and sound.

Allegations also cropped up against the local BJP MP that he did not respond to the SOS calls from the stranded students, a charge denied by the elected representative.

Naveen was killed when he stepped out of his bunker to exchange currency and fetch some food, his uncle Ujjanagouda claimed.

Ujjanagouda said Naveen along with others from Karnataka was stuck in a bunker in Kharkiv. He had gone out in the morning to exchange currency and to fetch food when he was caught in the shelling, in which he was killed instantaneously. On Tuesday when he rang up his father, Naveen said there was no food and water in the bunker, Ujjanagouda stated.

According to Pooja Praharaj, a student coordinator in Kharkiv, soon after the attack, a Ukrainian woman picked up Naveen’s phone and said its owner was being moved to a morgue. “He lived near the Governor’s House and had been standing in the queue for food. Suddenly there was an airstrike that blew up the Governor’s House and he was killed,” Praharaj said.

The tragic news of their child in a faraway country came as a blow to the parents back home, even as Gnanagouda’s Chalageri residence in this district slipped into gloom upon receiving the information. A large number of people thronged the house to console the bereaved family. Further, Gnanagouda alleged that no one from the Indian Embassy reached out to the stranded Indian students in Kharkiv, where his son was killed in shelling amid the Russian military offensive. — PTI

Embassy didn’t help: victim’s father

Haveri: No one from the Indian Embassy reached out to stranded Indian students in Kharkiv, where a Karnataka native pursuing medicine was killed in shelling amid a Russian military offensive, the victim’s father alleged on Tuesday. Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagoudar’s father said that on Tuesday, when his son called him, he said there was no food and water in the bunker.