An Indian student has reportedly been wounded in firing at Ukraine’s  capital Kyiv, Union Minister VK Singh told news agency ANI on Thursday.

"We heard reports that a student leaving Kyiv was shot. He was taken back into Kyiv and immediately taken to hospital. This is happening in the fighting," General (Retd) VK Singh told ANI at Poland's Rzeszow airport.

The incident comes close on the heels of Tuesday’s tragedy in which an Indian student was killed in Kharkiv when he was standing in a queue outside a grocery store. The 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa of Karnataka had stepped out to stock up on food as he was preparing to board a train out of Ukraine’s second largest city to leave for the western border.

The minister said the Centre is making efforts to ensure that the maximum number of students can come out of Ukraine with as less loss as possible.

The minister said around 1,700 students are still waiting to be evacuated from Ukraine.

The minister has been sent by PM Modi to Poland as a special envoy to expedite the evacuation of the Indian students from Ukraine. The waiver of the visa requirement for Indian nationals coming in from Ukraine are among the measures that have been put in place to speed up the evacuation.  

"The Indian embassy had earlier cleared on priority that everyone should leave Kyiv. In the event of war, the gun bullet does not look at anyone's religion and nationality," General Singh was quoted as saying by ANI.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, nearly 17,000 Indian nationals have left Ukraine's borders since advisories were issued over a fortnight back. There were around 20,000 Indians in Ukraine before the war broke out, most of whom are medical students.

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