ANXIOUSLY WAITING for news about her 22-year-old son, Hasina Majothi goes through the mail that she received from Sahil nearly three months ago, several times in a day since Tuesday, when the Ukrainian Army put out a video where he is purportedly heard saying he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in a Russian prison on drug-related charges. “I wanted to wish Sahil on his birthday, which was on September 30, but failed to reach out to him. The last email from him was in July-August. Even the lawyer we hired in Moscow said he was not able to contact him. So I sent my wishes to him which the lawyer assured me that he would convey to Sahil whenever they meet next,” she told The Indian Express on Friday. The single mother has also appealed to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel through an application submitted on Thursday at his office in Gandhinagar, seeking her only child's safe return home. "We only want our son to be back safe. The government should reach out to Ukraine. We will try to meet the CM,” Hasina said. Hasina Majothi has been living in Morbi with her brother and his wife, Hasina’s sister and mother, after Sahil moved to Russia to study computer engineering at a university in St Petersburg nearly two years ago. That was the last communication from Sahil, who is now in Ukraine’s custody. The email in Russian did not raise any suspicion to Hasina or her family. “In his last email too, Sahil did not mention anything over which we should be worried about. He said he is doing well and hopes to be back home soon,” Hasina told The Indian Express from her two-room house in Morbi’s Kalika Plot area. For over one-and-a-half years, since Sahil was captured, allegedly on April 9, 2024, he has spoken with his mother only twice on the same day. “It was a late call around 3 am from Sahil to say that he had been captured by the police. The second was on the same day around 15-20 minutes later. he told me about how he had been captured as part of a conspiracy. He was told that the courier company he was working for would supply food items,” Hasina claimed. Sahil Mohamed Hussein Majothi was recently captured by the Ukrainian armed forces, which revealed that they had captured an Indian citizen who surrendered to them while fighting on the frontlines of the major European conflict in Russian uniform. The Morbi resident purportedly described his circumstances to Ukrainian officials in a video that has since gone viral across social media platforms. Hasina said since Sahil was imprisoned exactly three months after he landed in Russia on January 9,2024, the two have been communicating in Russian through letters. “In all, Sahil sent ten letters of which around eight were in Russian and initial two-three in Rajasthani language. While he learnt Russian when he landed there as the university had made it mandatory to learn their language first for which we had also paid Rs 50,000 I had to use Google Translate to translate what he would send in Russian,” she said. The Ukrainian army on Tuesday released a statement with a purported video clip that showed Sahil Mohamed Hussein Majothi saying he was sentenced to seven years in a prison on drug-related charges. Speaking in Russian, he is heard saying he was offered the opportunity to sign a contract with the Russian military to avoid further punishment. “I didn’t want to stay in prison, so I signed a contract for the special military operation (Russia’s term for its invasion of Ukraine). But I wanted to get out of there,” he is heard saying. “I returned to my brother’s house when I was barely two months' pregnant in 2002, 18 months after my marriage,” Hasina, who sews school uniforms for a living, said. Hasina alleged that the courier company for which Sahil was working for may be behind a conspiracy against her son. “How come the police had captured my son and not the company or owner of the company if the drug allegation is true? Sahil told me that the police confirmed to him that they had captured him on a tip-off from a man through a call telling them that a boy from India is supplying drugs through the company. If this is not a conspiracy, then what is it?” she questioned.
