Sharad Pawar condoles death of Indian student in Ukraine, asks MEA to speed up rescue efforts

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 1 : Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday condoled the death of an Indian student in Ukraine.
Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, the deceased student, was a resident of Karnataka's Haveri district. The 21-year-old Indian, a student of Kharkiv National Medical University, was reportedly standing in a queue to buy food when he was killed in Russian shelling in Ukraine's Kharkiv earlier today.
"My deepest condolences to the family of our Indian student Naveen Shekharappa who lost his life in a shelling attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Thousands of our students are still stranded in harsh weather conditions & without any food in Ukraine", tweeted Pawar.
In another Tweet, he said, "I request the Central Government and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to understand the gravity of the situation, the desperate plight and anxiety of these students and their families."
According to him, the Government of India must speed up the rescue efforts to evacuate the stranded students at the earliest.
The Union government has launched Operation Ganga to bring back stranded students and Indian citizens from the conflict-torn Ukraine. Over the last few days, Indian nationals are being evacuated on flights from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania-- countries that share borders with Ukraine.
Special flights are being operated by Air India, SpiceJet and Indigo as part of the massive rescue mission. The seventh flight carrying 182 Indian nationals reached Mumbai from Romania's Bucharest. After special flights reach Mumbai and New Delhi, the evacuees are facilitated to reach their respective states, where local administration helps them to reach their homes.