HYDERABAD: After nearly eight months of being trapped in the warzone of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Narayanpet’s 24-year-old Mohammed Sufiyan returned to his home in Narayanpet on Friday evening.
The Telangana youth, who is among many of the Indian men duped under the pretext of high-paying jobs in Russia and thrown into fighting alongside Russian armed forces, returned along with five others — three from Karnataka and one each from Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.
Speaking to TNIE, Sufiyan recalled the traumatic fright that he underwent during his stay in Russia. “After we were handed over to the Russian army by agents, we were posted in Kostroma as per our contract. It was in Russian so we could not read and our cell phones were confiscated due to which we could not translate,” he said.
“Then we were transferred to a forest region. Our training started with weapons. I was able to contact my family after 25 minutes when a mobile was provided, just for two minutes and informed them about my whereabouts,” he added.
Sufiyan further said that the men were also made to dig ditches and tunnels, “I used to cut logs, dig trenches and construct bunkers.”
“We also loaded ammunition into trucks that used to be delivered to the soldiers and bring back the bodies of people who got injured on the frontline and deliver food and other supplies too,” he lamented and added, in order to threaten and punish them, the authorities used to fire shots around them.
He added that the group was disturbed after the death of Hemil Ashvinbhai Mangukiya from Gujarat in February. “We decided to record a video and then petition the Indian government to bring us back home. The agents were giving us false hopes. But thank Allah the video went viral and somehow we reached home,” Sufiyan said.