New Delhi, Aug 9: Out of 91 Indian nationals who were recruited into the Russian Army, 69 citizens are currently awaiting release, External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar said on Friday highlighting that many cases indicate that our nationals were misled and deployed into the army.

In reply to a question in Lok Sabha, Dr Jaishankar said, “We have in total 91 cases so far of Indian nationals who were recruited into the Russian Army, 8 of them unfortunately passed away, 14 of them have been discharged with our assistance. There are 69 Indian nationals who are awaiting release from the Russian army.”

Emphasising that the government take this issue very seriously, the Minister said, “I have myself raised this issue with the Russian foreign minister numerous times and when the Prime Minister was in Moscow last month, he raised it personally with President Vladimir Putin.”

“The Prime Minister got Putin’s assurance that any Indian national who is in the service of the Russian army will be discharged and released,” he added.

The problem is that the Russian authorities maintained that these Indian nationals have entered into contract for service with the Russian Army, the Minister informed the house adding, “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 told that they were going for some other job and then they were deployed with the Russian Army.”

Dr Jaishankar also highlighted, “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. During the investigation, two of the accused were arrested on the 24th of April and two more on the 7th of May. All the four accused are presently in Judicial custody,” he added.

UNI