Ukraine: Karnataka CM says efforts are on to bring back body of student killed in Kharkiv
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai also said that students from the state still stranded and that officials are trying to reach them.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Saturday said all efforts are being made to bring back the body of Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, a 21-year-old medical student who was killed during shelling in Ukraine’s Kharkiv city, reported The Indian Express.
Bommai also said that Gyanagoudar’s family would be given compensation.
He said that while many residents of Karnataka have been evacuated from war-torn Ukraine, some are still stranded in Kharkiv and Kyiv.
The chief minister added that Indian embassy officials are trying to contact them. “The officials have assured about contacting them immediately,” said Bommai, according to The Indian Express.
Bommai also said he had spoken to the External Affairs Minister as well as the Ukraine embassy on Friday regarding the evacuation of students.
Thousands of Indian students, most of them studying medicine, were left stranded in Ukraine after the Russian invasion began on February 24.
Many Indian students had to take shelter in bunkers and underground Metro stations in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which has been under heavy attack from the Russian forces.
Gyanagoudar was killed on March 1 after he left a metro station, where people have been taking shelter, to buy groceries from a store close by while heavy shelling was going on in the city.
On March 3, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Karnataka said that a coffin in a plane would occupy space that could otherwise be used for eight to ten students stranded in Ukraine.
Hubbali-Dharwad MLA, Arvind Bellad, made the statement in the context of uncertainty over bringing back the remains of Gyanagoudar.