In the final leg of Operation Ganga, India's evacuation drive in Ukraine, around 600 students were on Tuesday, 8 March, taken out of conflict-hit Sumy through a humanitarian corridor. Caught in continuous shelling, their evacuation to Poltava on buses, then to Lviv on a train, and finally to Jasionka in Poland, was the toughest for India to execute. They are now due to fly out of Poland and return to India soon.
But, amidst their evacuation, a video shared by certain sections of Indian media on 9 March, around 10 pm IST (6:30 pm local time in Ukraine), falsely, and prematurely, claimed that the rescued Indian students from Sumy had already arrived in Poland when they were still in Ukraine's Lviv.
The students were asked to shoot the video thanking the Indian government and the Ukrainian authorities for their safe evacuation to Poland as soon as they had boarded the train in Lviv. However, the video was shared even before their arrival in Poland.
It isn't clear who asked the students to shoot the video. Talking to The Quint, Jisna, a student who appeared in the video, declined to reveal who asked them to shoot it, but confirmed that it wasn't the Indian Embassy officials.
Some other students who did not wish to be named told The Quint that they were asked by one of their contractors to shoot it. And why did they make the video even before they reached Poland? So that it could be filmed during daylight and can be kept ready to be shared as soon as they reached Poland, the students were told.
'Don’t Know Who Released This Video'
As the video garnered views, likes, and retweets as well as praises from social media users, the train carrying students from Lviv to Poland had actually stalled for more than six hours inside the battered Ukrainian territory, with students "desperate for food and water", students on the train confirmed to The Quint.
More than 600 students were rescued from Sumy on Tuesday, and had to make an arduous 30-hour journey from Sumy to Poltava to Lviv. Their train from Lviv to Poland started around 2 pm local time on 9 March, Wednesday.
But the roughly two-hour journey was covered in more than seven hours, Anusha, a student from Sumy State University, confirmed to The Quint after they reached their destination.
Talking to this reporter when the train was stranded, another student, Mukesh, said, "The train has stopped in the middle of nowhere. We are hungry and haven’t eaten in hours. We don’t know how long we will be stranded here."
Many other students reiterated the same. Krishna, another student rescued from Sumy, said, “It’s true. The train has stopped midway…. there's no food and water. But someone in the group said as soon as we reach they will provide us with food.”
However, instead of showing the plight of the students, certain sections of Indian media were celebrating their 'arrival' in Poland.
Jisna said, "Actually we took this video in Lviv and we were supposed to release this video when we had reached Poland. I don’t know who released this video."
A confused Jisna added, "We thought we will reach Poland soon since it takes only two hours from Lviv. But I think due to some ongoing formalities, we have been waiting here for more than six hours now."
A screenshot of the Sumy State University WhatsApp group accessed by The Quint shows that one of the contractors had messaged students a day before they were rescued to thank the efforts of the Indian Embassy, the Indian government, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on video.
Despite repeated calls to the contractor concerned, The Quint has not received a response yet.
'It Was Fake News That We Had Reached'
In the past few days, videos of students thanking the Indian government, Indian Embassy officials and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have received flak from social media users for using students fleeing the Ukrainian-Russian war for PR purposes.
The Quint sent the video shared by ANI to the students stuck on the train. In response, Mukesh said, "No, it’s fake."
"They have no patience. It's false that we have reached. We’ve been stuck here since 2 pm. They post false news before we reach and start thanking people in advance," Anusha said at 7 pm local time, adding that the stalling of train even led to an altercation among students and the Indian authorities.
As per their GPS location accessed by this reporter at 9 pm local time on Tuesday, the train was still in Mostys’kyi Raion in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine.
The students finally reached the border and were waiting in a queue to complete immigration formalities at 10:04 pm local time. They crossed the border between 12:30 am and 1 am local time.
The Quint has reached out to ANI requesting a comment on the video it shared. Their response will be updated in the article when it's received. We have also reached out to the consulate team at the Embassy of India in Ukraine to understand the reason for the train stalling for several hours near Lviv.
(The author is an independent journalist based out of Paris. An alumna of University College Dublin, she writes about International Conflict and War.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)