HYDERABAD: About seven months after a video of him pleading to be rescued from the war-hit Russia-Ukraine border surfaced, Telangana native Mohammad Sufiyan returned home to a rousing welcome on Friday. The 22-year-old was accompanied by three other young men from Karnataka – all deceived by a fraudulent agent and slyly drafted into a private Russian army to fight Ukraine.
According to them, at least 60 Indian youth fell prey to this job fraud, with many among them still languishing in foreign land. They were all shipped out of India in Dec 2023, with a promise to get them work either as security personnel or helpers in Russia.
But life took a turn for the worse once they landed in Russia. “We were treated like slaves,” Narayanpet’s Sufiyan told TOI soon after landing in Hyderabad a little past noon on Friday.
The young man recalled his harrowing past few months. “We were woken up at 6 am every day and made to work 15 hours straight – with no rest or sleep. The conditions were inhuman. We were given meagre ration. Our hands were blistered, our backs ached and our spirits were broken. Yet, if we showed any signs of exhaustion, bullets were fired at us to force us back into the laborious tasks,” Sufiyan added, his voice trembling.
Their assignments were no mean jobs. They had to dig trenches and fire assault rifles. They were also trained to fire Kalashnikovs such as the AK-12 and AK-74, along with hand grenades and other explosives.
But the toughest challenge was to stay disconnected from the rest of the world. Sufiyan and his companions recalled how they never knew with certainty where they were – or were being taken to – and were not allowed to communicate with their families back in India.
“Our mobile phones were seized. For months during the training, I could not talk to my family,” said Abdul Nayeem from Karnataka, fighting back tears.
The psychological toll of living in an alien war zone was immense on the men. Syed Ilias Hussaini, a resident of Kalaburagi in Karnataka, described the constant fear of being caught in the crossfire and the unrelenting pressure to perform under life-threatening circumstances. “Every day we woke up not knowing if it would be our last. The sound of gunfire and explosions became a constant backdrop to our lives, and we lived in perpetual fear,” Ilias said, his eyes welling up.
The only way to cope, the men said, was to pray and imagine a day when they would set foot back in India and reunite with their families. “We longed for the comfort of our families and the safety of our homes. The thought of never seeing them again haunted us every day,” Sufiyan said, tightly holding onto his brother Mohammad Salman who, along with his father, mother and others, were at the airport to receive him.
The sight of other “soldiers” dropping dead only added to their trauma. “Hamil, a very good friend of mine from Gujarat, was blown to death in a drone attack. He was part of a team of 24 soldiers, including one Indian and one Nepali. It shook me up,” recalled Sufiyan. He added: “It was only after Hamil’s death that we told our families about our situation, who then requested Union external affairs minister S Jaishankar to rescue us from the warzone. I am glad to be able to see this day.”