Govt to bear full cost of treatment of injured student Harjot Singh: MEA

New Delhi, Mar 4 : The government confirmed on Friday that an Indian student is injured and recuperating in a hospital in Kyiv, and said that it will bear the full cost of his treatment. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, said at a special media briefing, that they are aware of the case of Harjot Singh, who was injured on February 27 in a firing attack while travelling in a cab along with two other Indians. He said they are trying to ascertain Harjot’s medical status and whether he will be able to move. “We are aware of the case, our embassy is in close touch with them; he is currently in a hospital in Kyiv, we are not sure exactly where. We are trying to ascertain his exact medical status, including his readiness to be able to move,” he said, adding that an embassy team is trying to go to Kyiv, which is a conflict zone. “I am happy to share that the Govt of India will be bearing the full medical cost of his treatment, but we should also be realistic that this is somewhere where violence and conflict are happening; we are trying to see if embassy representatives could go; but it is not easy re-entering the city, so we do have those constraints,” he added. “For the moment he is safe, he is in hospital, he is being looked after. The priority is to get the medical attention that he requires,” Bagchi said, and added they are trying to get some more details of the case. Harjot Singh, an Indian student from Delhi’s Chhattarpur, was wounded in a firing attack on his cab while travelling towards Lviv on Ukraine’s western border, and is now recuperating in a hospital in Kyiv. According to his accounts from the hospital bed to various media, the car he was in came under intense firing from buildings around, and he received bullet injuries on his left knee, right thigh, and one bullet went through his arm and entered his chest. He was taken by ambulance to Kyiv, near the Indian Embassy. He is seeking help from the Indian authorities. Meanwhile, the Russian Human Rights Commissioner has highlighted the incident and said it is now necessary to work on a mechanism for ensuring the safety of humanitarian corridors to bring out people from Ukraine. Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova told reporters: “It has just been reported that a foreign citizen, an Indian student, who wanted to leave the territory of Ukraine using a humanitarian corridor, was wounded. “This shows once again that it is necessary to work on a mechanism for ensuring the safe functioning of humanitarian corridors,” Moskalkova said. The main thing now is the agreement on ensuring the safety of humanitarian corridors on all sides, she said. The news of Harjot’s injury comes three days after Indian national Naveen Gyandagoudar, a 21-year-old student from Karnataka, was killed in shelling on February 1 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. RN