Her passport stolen in Kyiv, this Indian medical student got help from PMO

The Narendra Modi government has escalated evacuation efforts to bring back stranded Indians under Operation Ganga.

The prime minister has been personally monitoring the entire evacuation process, from sending union ministers to Ukraine to calling on the Indian Air Force to airlift the stranded Indian nationals, mostly students.

PM Modi has directed the government officials to reach out to the distressed students and family members. Thanks to the intervention by the PMO, a stranded medical student from Punjab’s Jalandhar district will be heading home.

A student of Kharkiv Institute of Medicine, Amanjot was supposed to board a flight to India from Kyiv on March 5. All her plans went off track as soon as Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

On Monday, she along with her friend Rohit Anumalla rushed to the Kyiv railway station to leave the city. She was robbed off her documents including the passport.

“There was no help desk at the railway station that could help me out. I even called up the embassy but couldn’t reach out to them,” she said.

It was a race against time for the medical student who needed to board a bus to Poland which would take her to.

When I explained the situation that she lost the bag containing all the documents, Vijay Misra sir responded and helped us.

Vijay Mishra, a member of a WhatsApp group called Covid Survivor Force, which claims to have worked during covid pandemic, got in touch with the girl via Rohit’s uncle.

“My uncle is a member of Covid frontier Force Whatsapp group. When I explained my situation to him, he got me in touch with Vijay Mishra,” Rohit said.

The volunteer spoke exclusively to Hindustan Times on how he managed to bring the PMO’s attention to the student’s ordeal.

“I reached out to Mr Amit Khare, the advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister S Jaishankar. Both were cordial and assured help,” he said.

On intervention, the girl got a call from the PMO and the Indian embassy too. The embassy officials have promised to issue her an emergency certificate.

“Yes, I got a call from Mr Khare and Foreign Secretary Harsh V Shringla,” the student said.

After hectic diplomatic paperwork, Amanjot managed to get an emergency certificate to get through the Polish border.