India

17‑Year‑Old Pleads for Missing Brother Who Went to Russia for Work

By Jayprakash S Naidu

For 21 days a 17‑year‑old girl has been calling senior government officials and posting videos on social media in an effort to locate her 21‑year‑old brother, who disappeared after traveling to Russia for a job. Vineet Kumar Dubey, who had completed only class 10, was offered a position as a food‑storage supervisor at a restaurant in Russia, with a monthly salary of $1,200 (about Rs 1,14,000). The company paid roughly Rs 70,000 for his tourist visa and flight tickets, but did not provide a job contract or specify the city where he would work. According to his sister, Aashi, the man was told his tourist visa would be converted to a work visa. Dubey’s family, which includes his father, a rice‑mill supervisor, and his sister, had been struggling since his mother’s suicide in 2019. Aashi said he wanted to earn a respectable salary to make his family and girlfriend proud and planned to marry his girlfriend when he returned.

Dubey left his home in Bilaspur’s Bila town for Delhi on 29 September, flew to Moscow on 1 October, and then took another flight to Volgograd. He was left alone in an apartment in Volgograd for five days, given a mobile phone with a Russian SIM card and 5,000 rubles for food and warm clothing, and made regular video calls to his sister. Aashi reported that a man met him at the Moscow airport and prevented him from contacting the Indian embassy.

On 6 October, Dubey called his family around 5 or 6 p.m., sounding scared and saying the company had misled him and was now forcing him to work as a delivery man. He told his sister he would ask the company to send him back to India the next day, but that was the last time they spoke. Later that night he made a final call to his father, saying he was being taken “somewhere” the next day and telling his family not to worry if his phone was switched off. From 7 October his phone remained off.

On 8 October Aashi emailed the Indian embassy in Russia and filed a complaint on the MADAD portal, a consular services management system. A government official responding through the portal confirmed that her brother was in a detention centre after being found carrying an illegal substance. The government provided him with a lawyer and a translator. Aashi questioned how he could have cleared security at three airports if he was carrying an illegal substance.

Around midnight on 9 October she received another call from an Indian man who said Dubey was being held at a detention centre and would be trained and pushed into the war with Ukraine. He asked for Rs 3.5 lakh to hire a lawyer. On 13 October Dubey sent a final voice message from the detention centre through his translator, apologising to his family and saying he had come to Russia to work but was now stuck between jail and court. He told them not to worry and that he could not live up to his girlfriend’s expectations, and that he might be gone for six to seven years.

With no further communication, Aashi wrote to the Bilaspur collector, the Superintendent of Police and political leaders, including the Prime Minister. On Tuesday the family received another audio message claiming that Dubey had died by suicide, but they do not know whether the message is genuine. A man claiming to be from Russia said he was also at the detention centre with Dubey and that Dubey had ended his life.

In Bilaspur Senior Superintendent of Police Rajnesh Singh said the police have received his sister’s complaint. “We wrote to the Indian embassy about a week ago, but have not received a response so far. Further action will be initiated as soon as we receive a reply,” he said. Bilaspur collector Sanjay Agrawal said he had discussed the matter with the SSP and that the administration has also approached the Ministry of External Affairs, expressing hope for a positive outcome.