A doctor from Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur district, Dr K Jagadeeswaran, was detained in Russia under unclear circumstances, PTI reported. His wife, Yamini, has appealed to both the Central and state governments for urgent intervention to ensure his safe return to India. According to the reports, Jagadeeswaran was detained by Russian authorities at Sochi airport in September this year.
Yamini said the family approached the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, but did not get a solution. She also lodged a complaint with the BJP Tamil Nadu office. “Through the media, I sincerely request the Central and State governments to take steps for the safe and early return of my husband from Russia,” she told PTI.
TN doctor detained in Russia, wife seeks help
Yamini told PTI that her husband was tortured and humiliated while in custody for unspecified reasons. His suffered physically during this time. Although he has now been released from custody, he does not have the documents needed to travel to Moscow and return to India. She said that Jagadeeswaran received a degree in medicine from an Armenian University in 2022, and they have been living in Armenia since then. They also have a baby girl and had planned to visit their families in Tamil Nadu in August this year.
“We just wanted to visit our families in Tamil Nadu. I am from Chennai, and Jagadeeswaran is from Tiruvallur. During our visit, my husband’s friend, Shekhar Manikandan, asked him to accompany him to Russia because he speaks Russian well,” she told PTI. Shekhar runs an educational consultancy in Russia and wanted Jagadeeswaran to join him on a tourist visa. They left Chennai on September 15, and their ordeal began at the Sochi airport.
Detention at Sochi airport
According to Yamini, the immigration authorities interrogated them at the airport. After checking Jagadeeswaran’s passport and learning that he could speak Russian, authorities detained him along with his friend on September 16.
Shekhar Manikandan was released after a week and deported back to India, but Jagadeeswaran was not ordered to leave. Later, police detained him, claiming he had not cooperated with immigration officials. “The immigration authorities have told me that my husband disobeyed their orders and did not respond to their questions. That is why they detained him. But that is not true,” she told PTI.
Later, a lawyer in Sochi took up Jagadeeswaran’s case, and he was released just with his passport. To the time, Jagadeeswaran has no access to the documents needed to travel within Russia. Yamini said, “Right now, he is under the custody of the Russian lawyer we hired. The Indian Embassy in Moscow told us he should reach Moscow from Sochi for a safe return to India. But without proper documents, he cannot travel.”
Yamini added that her husband was harassed, humiliated, and left to starve, which imoacted his health. “Instead of giving a proper explanation on why he had been detained, my husband had been harassed, humiliated by the authorities,” she said, adding, “His sugar levels dropped to 1 per cent.”