CHENNAI: Actor and humanitarian Sonu Sood helped 101 medical students from Tamil Nadu and Delhi who were stranded in Moscow during the lockdown reach Chennai.
Sharing their experience, students who reached Chennai on Wednesday and were quarantined at a hotel here told The New Indian Express that they had paid Rs 33,000 for the chartered flight arranged by the actor.
"The flight had a seating capacity for 200 passengers. We were only 101 students, including one student from Delhi. We were not sure if the private airlines would operate chartered flights for our strength. But, we learned actor Sonu Sood paid the remaining money to book the entire flight and facilitated our travel," said T R Sakthi Priyadarshini, one of the students.
The students said around 200 medical students who wanted to reach Chennai were connected through WhatsApp groups and were trying to book chartered flights with private operators. But they didn't have a direct flight to Chennai from Russia. Later, some of the students took flights for other states in India and only 101 people were left.
"We had a Vande Bharat flight from Moscow on July 3, but our course got over only on July 6. So we could not take that flight. Also, our visa expiry date was August 1. But, the Russian government had announced that the students could stay there till September if they don't get a flight due to the lockdown. But then there were other challenges and I had to prepare for the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination in December. So we were tense," added Priyadarshini.
Another student Deepan Prabhakaran, a native of Villupuram, said "I was staying in an apartment. I had to pay rent and also had to take care of my food expenses along with other things. Also I had paid a fee for online coaching for FMGE."
The students also said they sent an email to Sood on July 23 after seeing reports of the actor helping students stranded in Kyrgyzstan reach India. Soon, Sood's office contacted the students and arranged for the flight.