Hyderabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi has formally urged the Indian embassy in Moscow to secure the return of Mohammed Ahmed, a Hyderabad resident who says he was duped into going to Russia for work and subsequently forced into military service. In a letter to the embassy, Owaisi said Ahmed — an Indian passport holder from Khairatabad — travelled to Russia on April 25 after accepting a construction-job offer from a Mumbai-based consultancy. According to the account released with the MP’s intervention, Ahmed spent nearly a month unemployed, was then taken by persons connected to the Russian Army to a remote location for weapons training, and later sent to the Ukrainian border where he and other recruits were compelled to fight.

The embassy’s counsellor in Moscow, Tadu Mamu, told reporters that the mission has shared Ahmed’s details with Russian authorities and formally requested his release and safe repatriation to India. Video footage that circulated online on October 16 shows Ahmed describing how he and several others were transported to an unknown base, trained with arms, and sent to frontline positions; he alleges 30 recruits were taken together, and that heavy casualties followed, with 17 of the group reportedly killed. Ahmed also claims he attempted to escape from a military vehicle and suffered a fractured left leg, and that recruits who refused to fight were threatened with execution and false battlefield explanations.

Ahmed’s family and local leaders have pressed for swift consular intervention as the case raises wider concerns about fraudulent overseas recruitment and the vulnerability of job-seekers. The MP’s appeal frames the incident as both an individual humanitarian crisis and a cautionary example of how illicit recruitment networks can exploit economic desperation. The embassy’s engagement with Russian officials is the immediate next step; authorities in Hyderabad and the Central government may also pursue investigations into the alleged Mumbai-based consultancy that arranged Ahmed’s travel, and any channels that facilitated his movement abroad.