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Airlifted by US army from Afghanistan, Pratapgarh’s IT engineer returns home
An IT engineer from Pratapgarh who was working at the American army base camp in Kabul when Taliban took control of Afghanistan, managed to reach his UP village
Ashok Kumar Singh, 35, an IT engineer from Pratapgarh who was working at the American army base camp in Kabul when Taliban took control of Afghanistan, managed to reach home at Kunwar Ka Purva in Babuganj Bazaar of Lalganj tehsil on Wednesday.
He returned home via Qatar and Kuwait with the support of US Air Force.
“Our base camp was located about 8-10 km from Pul-e-Charkhi, the biggest prison in Kabul and employed 60 people. Among them were five Indians, 35 Americans and 20 British nationals. Two hours before the Taliban reached Kabul on August 14 night, US embassy ordered that we vacate the camp,” he recalled while talking to HT on phone from Pratapgarh.
“Before leaving the camp, we took back-up of the entire data on our computers and destroyed around 200 laptops. Forty vehicles of the US army were burnt to prevent them from falling in the hands of the Taliban. After this, six Chinook helicopters of the US Army got us airlifted to the airport,” he shared.
“We were then flown to Doha (Qatar) by a US Air Force plane on the night of August 15. After staying there for the next day, we reached Kuwait and finally managed to land at New Delhi on Tuesday night,” he said.
“It is not that Taliban is not being welcomed by the locals but at the same time there is substantial population which wants to escape for better opportunity as they feel their future is bleak in Afghanistan,” he said.
He said Indian government is evacuating Indians from different locations in Afghanistan.
“There are many Indians still in Afghanistan and they need to be taken to safety as soon as possible,” he said.
