His son injured in Ukraine shooting, a father’s appeal from Delhi to warring nations

#WATCH “No support from the Indian embassy yet. I have been trying to get in touch with them, every day they say we will do something but no help yet,” says Harjot Singh, an Indian who sustained multiple bullet injuries in war-torn Ukraine, receiving treatment at a Kyiv hospital pic.twitter.com/8oc9urO74s

— ANI (@ANI) March 4, 2022

“He is really scared and the constant shelling in the city has made things worse. He fears a strike at the hospital will kill him. I plead with Russia and Ukraine to please stop this war. Help the students peacefully leave the country,” Harjot’s father Kesar Singh, 66, told The Indian Express.

He said the family, which lives in south Delhi’s Chattarpur area, has been in touch with Harjot daily through video calls.

According to the family, Harjot, a first-year student at International European University, was fired upon on February 27.

Harjot had booked a cab to Lviv for US $1,000 along with three other foreign students after local authorities allegedly did not allow him to board a train out of Kyiv, his family members said.

They shared a text message that Harjot sent from hospital. “I was going to Lviv city by car in Ukraine. But in the middle of the way, I was attacked and I was shot at. The ambulance brought me to the hospital. Now I am in Kyiv city. About 20 minutes away from the Indian embassy. I want you (to) help,” he wrote.

In a video interview to news agency ANI, Harjot said the cab crossed two checkpoints on the way but at the third checkpoint they were stopped and asked to return the next day.

“We returned from there as the local authorities cited security reasons. As I reached Kyiv city, a bullet whizzed past the car window. We all… ducked inside the car. Three-four people were firing at us continuously from the front and other people from the roof of a building. They had AK-47s,” Harjot said.

Harjot said after the firing stopped, he slowly opened the car door and lay on the ground before falling unconscious. “Two bullets hit me in my left knee. Another bullet ripped through my right leg. Another bullet entered my chest from the shoulder area,” he said.

When he regained consciousness in hospital, he said, “The doctors told me that I was lying on the street for 3 or 4 hours. I had lost a lot of blood.”

Harjot pleaded with the Indian embassy to help evacuate him from the country. “This is a new life. I want to go back to India and spend this new life with my family. I tried to contact the embassy but they have already moved on from there to Lviv. I have not got any support till now. The authorities keep telling me they will do something. Trying and doing are two separate things…”

His family told The Indian Express there was no word on Harjot for four days after he was shot at.

“For four days, we looked into Harjot’s social media accounts and found out all his friends. We made contact with each of them and tried to find out about him. Then we stayed glued to the news for days waiting for a word on him. We were told that no Indian student has been left behind in Kyiv, but my brother and several other students are stuck in the city,” said his elder brother Prabhjot Singh.

Four days later, Harjot managed to contact his family after his doctor helped with the phone call.

“My son should not have been caught in this situation. We feel so helpless,” said Parkash Kaur, 58, of her youngest of three children. “The government is asking the students to find their way to the border areas. How will they leave a war zone?”

“People are saying why did our students go to Ukraine to study. The government should have made more colleges and opened up more seats for our children so that they don’t have to go abroad and study,” Harjot’s father Kesar said.