Bengaluru, Feb 28: Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Monday urged not to politicise the evacuation process from the war-torn Ukraine, as he called on everyone to work together.

The JD(S) patriarch in a series of tweets said, scoring points at this hour of crisis will make us look bad.

"I have been watching videos of our young citizens stranded in Ukraine making fervent pleas for evacuation. It is heart wrenching to see their plight. I can understand their desperation to get back home safely. But when a war is raging in that country and there is so much uncertainty on the ground, and when operational links are broken, it is only fair that we support our officers and embassies to focus on the job at hand," Gowda tweeted.

He said, he knows from experience that these operations can be tough and delicate.

"Let us not politicise the evacuation process. It will demoralise those conducting the operation. Scoring points at this hour of crisis will make us look bad. Let us work together," he added.

Recently, Gowda, who is also the member of Rajya Sabha, had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to instruct the External Affairs Ministry to transport all Indian citizens back to safety at the earliest, and while they are still stranded make adequate arrangements to take care of their well-being.

Stating that he is aware that the Indian government is already engaged in evacuating Indian citizens, especially students, he specifically shared a list of nearly a dozen medical students from his home district of Hassan in Karnataka, with their last known coordinates.

"It is a very difficult situation, but I am sure the government will leave no stone unturned to bring Indian citizens to safety," he had added in a letter dated February 26.

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Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.

According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.

He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.

Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.

He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.

His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.

The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.

The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.

Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.

Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.