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The Indian who fought the war in Chechnya

M I Khan in Bhubaneswar

His mother insists it is like a rebirth for his son. And while Satyanarayan Mishra's training in medicine may not allow him to agree with her completely, he knows he has been lucky, very lucky.

Satyanarayan, a student of medicine at the Dagestan State Medical Academy in the Republic of Dagestan, was released only recently by Chechen rebels after almost two years' of captivity. He was reunited with his family at the Cuttak railway station on Wednesday when he arrived from Delhi on Neelachal Express.

Sitting in his middle-class home in upper Telengabazar area on Friday he recalled how he was beaten up and kept without food for days on end. His captors were involved a bloody war with Russians troops and that only increased the risk to his life.

"I had given up all hopes of seeing my parents again," said Satyanarayan. He evaded questions about his captors, but said he was renamed Abdul Mallick and made to follow Islamic traditions by them.

His mother sat nearby crying silently as Satyanarayan narrated his experience. She would soon travel to Puri to hold a pooja for her son at the Lord Jagannath temple. At home, she has already performed a pooja thanking god for her son's safe return.

"It was all by mercy of Lord Jagannath...my son has come back from the jaws of death," she said.

"I never lost hope. I was sure that one day my son would come back to me," she said recalling the days when the family had absolutely no information about Satyanarayan's whereabouts.

"Those were dark days...thank god it's all in the past now," she said.

Satyanarayan's father, Ladu Kishore Mishra, a school teacher, however, is worried how his son would now complete his studies. The family has ruled out his going back to Dagestan.

The senior Mishra said he would try and get his son admitted to a medical college in the state. He has already written to the Indian embassy in Moscow asking them to arrange for his son's papers from Dagestan.

"My son should be given a chance to complete his degree," he said, revealing that he would soon be seeing Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his minister for higher education in this connection.

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