Mumbai: Sainikhesh Ravichandran was rejected by the Indian Army twice because of his height, but the 21-year-old Tamil Nadu native did not give up his dream of joining the force. A student of Aerospace engineering at Kharkiv National University in Ukraine, when he got the chance to volunteer part of the Georgian National Legion paramilitary unit against the Russian forces, Ravichandran didn’t think twice.
According to the intelligence report of the Centre and the state government, he refused to return to India, Sainikhesh Ravichandran is now fighting on behalf of the Ukrainian Army.
The Logical Indian reported that his Central intelligence officers had met his parents in Coimbatore. They informed how their son was passionate about military and armed training and also showed his room, which is full of photographs of Indian military and officers.
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Post his high school, he tried getting into Indian Army, but faced rejection. He even approached the US Consulate in Chennai in the hoping of joining the American Army, but returned empty-handed. Hence, he enrolled for a five-year course in Kharkiv in 2018 and has been living in Ukraine since then.
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Earlier, Sainikhesh Ravichandran used to call back home at a regular interval. However, for the past few days, there has been no communication with his family.
His father told IANS, “I am terribly upset and I have requested the Government of India to bring my son back to India. He had contacted home a few days ago and said that he was safe and he was not listening to our requests to come back.”
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Meanwhile, the evacuation of around 700 Indian students stranded in Ukraine’s Sumy has started. “694 Indian students stranded in Sumy have left for Poltava from where they will be brought back,” Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.
