West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wondered why were students not brought back earlier from war-torn Ukraine and said it is the Centre's responsibility to evacuate Indians stranded in the east European country.
She also said the central government should realise that humanity is more important than politics and urged it to take a lead role in peace talks.
"It is the Union government's responsibility to bring back Indians stuck in war-hit Ukraine. I don't want to criticise the government on matters of external affairs. But sometimes I have seen that we are lagging behind on matters of external affairs because of some coordination gap and political businesses.
"Our students are stuck there, and somebody died. Some are staying in bunkers, and some are in Romania, a neighbour of Ukraine," Banerjee said. Her comments came a day after a medical student from Karnataka's Haveri district was killed in intense shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday, marking India's first casualty in the war.