NewsGate Press Network

By Vineet Dikshit

Evacuated Indian nationals from war torn Ukraine are reporting factual accounts that Indian flag, the Tricolour is being increasingly used as general gate pass for safe passage through numerous checkpoints.

Late on Thursday evening the 3rd of March 2022, various television channels in India carried footage of an impromptu meeting between prime minister Narendra Modi and a group of students who just landed back in Varanasi – admitting that nationals belonging to Nigeria and Morocco were given clear passage at Russian army’s checking points after they apparently waved the Indian flag.

All this happened when convoys of buses carrying Indian students to the Romanian border points prominently displayed the Tricolour.

As majority of evacuated students returning to India were pursuing medical education, the Prime Minister blamed previous governments for a large number of them going abroad this (to study medicine).

Modi asserted that his government has been working to augment the number of medical colleges so that students can enrol themselves within the country.

Later in the evening during the daily media briefing on Operation Ganga, Arindam Bagchi the official spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs said till date over 18,000 students have returned in the aftermath of turmoil in the Ukraine.

Bagchi said 18 flights will operate in next 24 hours including three sorties of the IAF’s C-17 Globemaster to ferry thousands of escaping students across the Ukraine.

Evacuated students are first reaching entry points along the border at Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Hungary and Moldova and then flown to India via Operation Ganga flights.