Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, March 4
When 22-year-old Karan Kishore finally made it safely to the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, his family heaved a sigh of relief.
The last few days have been hard for this son of a Punjab police inspector: he studies medicine in Kharkiv, a city that has been seeing intense shelling from invading Russian forces. People like Karan, stranded, alone, and caught in the middle of another man’s war, found their way slowly to Ukraine’s border with Hungary, and from there, were flown home to India by Indian authorities.
Karan Kishore was one of several Indian students who landed at the airport on Friday morning. Seven others from the district were with him. Information from the Jalandhar administration’s control room says 16 of 56 stranded people from the district have been flown back to safety until Friday afternoon.
For people like Karan’s father Gurdip Lal, an inspector in Punjab Police at the local Commissionerate, seeing his son helped lift the anxiety that had plagued him for days.
There are others like Karan still awaiting their turn: Deputy Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori said 21 people from Jalandhar district are waiting at the Polish borders to be flown back home; six at the Hungary border; four students in Romania; one in Germany; and three in Slovakia.
Round-the-clock helpline numbers for the district are 0181-2224417 and 1100.
Karan Kishore and his family members at IGI Airport, New Delhi, on Friday. Tribune
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