2003 Indians brought back safely from Iran, says MEA as another flight lands

161 people evacuated from Israel and moved to Amman would return on a chartered flight late on Monday, the first batch of Indians to be evacuated from Israel

Published on: Jun 23, 2025, 23:10:10 IST

By Rezaul H Laskar

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NEW DELHI: India evacuated more than 2,000 of its nationals from Iran by Monday evening and chartered flights were set to bring back more Indians from Iran and Israel following an escalation in hostilities between the West Asian countries.

This UGC image posted on social media on June 23, 2025 shows a plume of smoke billowing after Israeli strikes in Tehran the same day. Israel said it struck Iran Revolutionary Guards sites in Tehran and the city's notorious Evin prison on June 23, intensifying its attacks a day after the United States hit the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities (AFP PHOTO / UGC / ANONYMOUS)

A total of 291 people, including one Sri Lankan citizen, were evacuated from the Iranian city of Mashhad on a special flight that reached New Delhi on Monday evening, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on social media.

“With this, 2,003 Indian nationals have been brought back safely from Iran so far,” Jaiswal said.

Sri Lankan student Fathima Iman Fazir was also on the flight from Mashhad that was part of India’s evacuation effort. The governments of Nepal and Sri Lanka had sought India’s assistance in evacuating their nationals from Iran last week.

Another flight from Mashhad is expected to land in New Delhi early on Tuesday.

A group of 161 Indian nationals, evacuated from Israel and moved to Amman in Jordan by road, would return on a chartered flight late on Monday, officials said. This is the first batch of Indians to be evacuated from Israel.

India had earlier advised its citizens who wanted to leave Israel to travel by land border crossing to either Jordan or Egypt, from where they would be evacuated on special flights.

Last week, India launched Operation Sindhu to evacuate its nationals from Iran and Israel. Indians in Iran were initially moved to Armenia by road before special chartered flights were arranged from the Iranian city of Mashhad after authorities eased airspace restrictions last Friday as a special gesture.

The Indian embassy in Tehran has already announced that all Indian nationals in Iran will be evacuated. Iran is home to about 10,000 Indians, many of them students enrolled in professional courses, and a sizeable number of Indian pilgrims were in the country when hostilities erupted after Israel’s air strikes on June 13.

There are more than 32,000 Indians in Israel, many of them care-givers and construction workers hired in recent months to replace Palestinians.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More

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