Putin has assured PM Modi that 69 Indians with Russian Army will be released soon: Jaishankar

“We have a total of 91 cases of Indian nationals who were recruited into the Russian Army. Eight of them have unfortunately passed away; 14 of them have been discharged and come back with our assistance. There are 69 Indian citizens who are awaiting release from the Russian Army,” Jaishankar told the House.

“We take this issue very very seriously. I have myself raised this issue many times with the Russian Foreign Minister. When the PM was in Moscow last month he raised it with President Putin, and he got President Putin’s assurance that any Indian national who is in the service of the Russian Army will be discharged and released,” Jaishankar added.

According to Jaishankar, the problem is that the Russian authorities maintain that these Indian nationals entered into contracts for service with the Russian Army.

“We are not necessarily subscribing to that. I think in many cases, there are reasons to indicate that our nationals were misled, that they were being told that they were going for some other job and that they were then deployed with the Russian army,” he said.

When Owaisi asked what action the government was taking against immigration agents, Jaishankar said that regarding the people who are involved in trafficking, “we will have to go by what the CBI inquiry has told us”.

According to Jaishankar, the CBI has registered a criminal case against 19 individuals and entities.

“They have examined those 14 people who have returned from Russia. Sufficient evidence has surfaced against 10 human traffickers whose identities we know. During the investigation, two of the accused were arrested on April 24 and two more on May 7. All the four accused are presently in judicial custody,” he said.

Owaisi also asked whether India would stop buying oil from Russia if it does not respond positively.

To this, Jaishankar said, “When President Putin has given us an assurance it is not required to jump the gun and say they are not serious. It is important to hold the Russians to their word. We are not going to get into politics over this. We are here to get our 69 citizens back because Indian nationals should not be fighting in the Russian Army.”

TDP MP MS Reddy asked about the crackdown on immigration agents sending people to West Asia.

“The bulk of the cyber-related cases are from Andhra Pradesh and to some extent Telangana. Majority of cases are in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. We have sought the cooperation of state governments. It is an issue of national concern,” Jaishankar said.

On a related question on the cyber trafficking of people to South East Asia to work on cyber scams, Jaishankar said, “We take this very, very seriously. We have taken it up with all the concerned governments at a political level. So far, 650 Indian nationals have been repatriated from Cambodia, 415 from Myanmar and 548 from Laos. The government also appreciates the gravity of this issue, this is an issue for which we have to be very vigilant. We have to crack down very hard”.