Last week, the Indian government announced that Russia had released dozens of the 91 Indians who were duped into fighting for Russian forces in the country’s war with Ukraine. Some of them have since returned home, while the process of bringing back others is still underway. The BBC’s Neyaz Farooquee spoke to some of the men about their problems.

“I’m panicking. I’m not sure if I’ll come back safe or in a box. Please save me.”

This is the message that Urgen Tamang, a former Indian soldier, sent to the BBC from near a town in southern Ukraine, days before he was discharged from the front lines in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which entered its third year in February.

Mr Tamang is one of the 91 Indians who were forced to fight in the war. Most of them come from poor families and were lured by agents with promises of money and work, sometimes as “helpers” in the Russian army.

Instead, they were sent to the war zone. Many of them said they were stationed in parts of Ukraine under Russian control, where they had to dodge landmines, drones, missiles and sniper attacks without any military training.

So far, nine Indians have died in the conflict and Indian authorities say they have arrested 19 people for human trafficking.

In July, Russia promised the early release of all Indians fighting in its army. This came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Moscow and raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin, the two countries that traditionally have cordial relations.

45 of them have since been released. Some have returned home safely, others, like Mr Tamang, are on their way home.

“I can’t believe I’m out of there,” said Sunil Karwa, an electrician from Rajasthan who joined the Russian army in February. He is stationed near Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine that has seen heavy fighting. He was standing at Moscow airport waiting for his flight when he spoke to the BBC.

Mr Karwa described scenes of death and destruction, a reality that hit him hardest when a man from his neighboring village was shot dead on the battlefield.

“They sent him back to the front 15 days after his injury and he fainted on the field. Now he is paralyzed,” he said.

Like him, most of the other recruits were workers between the ages of 19 and 35 who were hired by agents based in India, Dubai and Russia.

They say their contracts were in Russian, a language they did not understand, but they signed them anyway in the hope of better opportunities.

“The process was so quick – just a few signatures and photos and we were (in the army),” Mr Karwa said.

Raja Pathan joined the army in February as a last resort after an education consultant tricked him into enrolling in a non-existent college.

“When I got there, I saw banners advertising recruitment into the army. By that time, I had already invested so much time and money that I decided to join anyway,” he said.

It was the death of two friends that finally prompted Mr Pathan to flee. He was released in August with the help of a sympathetic Russian commander who enabled him to leave the country.

He now lives in Moscow and helps other Indians to escape from there.

Mohammad Sufyan from the southern state of Telangana returned to India on September 12 with five other men.

Safe in his home, he wears the trauma of survival at the front. “There was hardly any peace there and at the beginning I couldn’t speak to my family for 25 days,” he said.

The worst moment came in February, when his friend Hemil Mangukiya, an Indian from the state of Gujarat, was killed right in front of his eyes.

“He was only 15 metres away from me, digging a trench near Krynky (in Kherson), when a rocket hit,” Mr Sufyan recalled. “I put his body in the truck myself.”

“After I saw my friend’s body, I had no strength left to do anything,” he added.

After the death, Mr Sufyan and other Indians trapped there released a video with a plea for help, which reached Indian MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who educated the matter with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The men’s families had also asked the Indian government for help in their repatriation.

“It is a miracle that I have come back home,” said Azad Yusuf Kumar, a resident of Indian-administered Kashmir who was part of Sufyan’s group in the army.

“One minute you’re digging a trench and the next an artillery shell is falling and burning everything down. It was pure luck whether it hit you or someone else.”

In February, Mr Kumar told the BBC how he accidentally shot himself in the foot during training. “My commander kept saying: shoot with your right hand, shoot with your left hand, shoot up, shoot down,” he said. “I had never touched a weapon before. It was extremely cold and with the weapon in my left hand I ended up shooting myself in the foot.”

Back in Kashmir, he tells how his commander accused him of deliberately shooting himself to avoid having to go to the front.

“But I was lucky that I didn’t have to fight. Four men from my camp died in an attack. I could have been one of them,” he said.

Although the recent release was a relief for many, the despair of the prisoners remaining in Russia has grown as their release has been delayed.

Mr Tamang, who joined the Russian army in January, had previously told The Indian Express newspaper was told by his local councillor Rabi Pradhan that 13 of 15 non-Russian members of his unit had died.

The fact that he was sent to the front at least twice after signing his letter of discharge in August increased his fears – and his distrust of the process.

On September 15, he was on his way to Moscow, but still unsure if he was really returning home. “I’m on the way, but I will continue to let you know my location,” he said.

The last time he wrote a text message, he had already left Ukraine, hoping to continue his journey home.