A Russian job, a detention centre and a chilling voice message: Bilaspur family’s search for son

For the last 21 days, a 17-year-old girl has knocked on the doors of senior government officials and posted videos on social media, trying to find her 21-year-old brother. According to her, he went to Russia for a job earlier this month but has been missing since October 6.

Vineet Kumar Dubey, who studied up to class 10, was desperately looking for a job when he was offered a position in Russia as a food storage supervisor at a restaurant, with a monthly salary of $1,200 (about Rs 1,14,000), his sister, Aashi, said. The company that offered him the job spent around Rs 70,000 on his tourist visa and flight tickets. However, she said he was neither given a job contract nor told which city he would be working in. The Telegram user he was in touch with told him his tourist visa would be converted to a work visa.

Dubey’s family – his father, who works as a supervisor at a rice mill, and his 17-year-old sister – said they had been struggling since Dubey’s mother died by suicide in 2019. According to Aashi, he wished to make them and his girlfriend proud by earning a respectable salary. He planned to marry his girlfriend when he returned, she said.

Dubey felt he had secured the job because he was fluent in English. So, without thinking much, the man who had never left Chhattisgarh before travelled from his home in Bilaspur’s Bila town to Delhi on September 29. From there, he flew to Moscow and arrived on October 1. He then boarded another flight to Volgograd.

For five days, he was kept alone in an apartment in Volgograd and given a mobile phone with a Russian SIM card and 5,000 rubles to buy food and warm clothes, she said. He made regular video calls to his sister, showing her his apartment and the city. His sister claimed a man met Dubey at the Moscow airport and made sure he didn’t contact the Indian embassy.

Then came the first sign of distress.

“He called us around 5 or 6 pm on October 6. He sounded scared and disturbed, and I could hear his voice quivering. He said the company had misled him and was now forcing him to work as a delivery man. I told him I would send him money from my savings and that he should just return home,” she told The Indian Express.

“Bhaiya told me that the next day he would ask the company to send him back to India. But that was the last time we spoke,” she said.

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That night, around 10.30 pm, he made one last phone call to his father, saying he was being taken “somewhere” the next day. He told his family not to worry if his phone was switched off. From October 7, his phone remained switched off.

On October 8, his sister emailed the Indian embassy in Russia and subsequently 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, she said. The government, she said, provided Dubey with a lawyer and a translator.

“I do not believe this because, if he was carrying an illegal substance, how did he manage to clear security at three different airports during his journey?” she said.

Around midnight on October 9, she received another phone call, this time from another Indian.

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“The man told me that bhaiya 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 so he could hire a lawyer to help him,” she said.

On October 13, Dubey sent a final voice message from the detention centre through his translator. In it, he apologised to his family.

According to his sister, he said, “I came to Russia to work, but I have landed in trouble and am stuck between jail and court. Do not think too much, and do not let papa worry too much either. Tell her (his girlfriend) that I could not live up to her expectations. I know I will be gone for six to seven years. I thought I would earn money for everyone and make everyone happy, but I do not think that will happen.”

With no communication from Dubey, his sister said she wrote to the Bilaspur collector, the Superintendent of Police and political leaders, including the Prime Minister.

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On Tuesday, the Dubey family received another audio message claiming that Dubey had died by suicide. However, the family does not know whether the message is genuine or fake. A man claiming to be from Russia said he was also at the detention centre with Dubey and that Dubey had ended his life, his sister said.

“My father started crying. We don’t know who to believe, but the government needs to give us an update,” she said.

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. The administration has also approached the Ministry of External Affairs, he said, expressing hope for a positive outcome. —With PTI