India brought back 78 people, including 25 of its nationals and Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, from Afghanistan on Tuesday and an almost equal number are expected to be evacuated from Kabul by Wednesday, people familiar with developments said.
The group was flown out from Kabul to the Tajikistan capital of Dushanbe in a C-130 Hercules aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) late on Monday. From Dushanbe, the group was brought to New Delhi on an Air India flight on Tuesday morning.
With the window for evacuation flights from Kabul set to close because of the Taliban’s insistence that the US must withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by August 31, India and other countries have redoubled their efforts to fly out all their nationals and Afghan citizens.
A plan to operate a second flight with an IAF aircraft to Dushanbe on Monday night had to be put off because of certain difficulties, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. More Indians and Afghan nationals, including some who are already at Kabul airport, are expected to be flown out on Wednesday, the people said.
The Indian side is also looking out for any Indian nationals who may still be in Afghanistan so that they can be brought into the airport for evacuation. The people said that among of the biggest problems faced by those involved in the evacuation efforts were the failure of Indian citizens to heed four security alerts issued in recent weeks, and their failure to register with the Indian embassy in Kabul.
{{/usCountry}}The Indian side is also looking out for any Indian nationals who may still be in Afghanistan so that they can be brought into the airport for evacuation. The people said that among of the biggest problems faced by those involved in the evacuation efforts were the failure of Indian citizens to heed four security alerts issued in recent weeks, and their failure to register with the Indian embassy in Kabul.
{{/usCountry}}Transporting evacuees from different parts of Kabul to the airport also continues to be a problem because of the presence of hundreds of Taliban fighters in the city. The Taliban have also been insisting that Afghan nationals shouldn’t leave the country.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet on Tuesday that India’s operation to evacuate people from Kabul had been named “Devi Shakti”. He also lauded the efforts of the IAF, Air India the external affairs ministry in flying out the group of 78 people from Kabul via Dushanbe.
The group was received at New Delhi airport by Union minister Hardeep Puri and minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan. The ministers carried a copy of the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, which was brought by the Afghan Sikhs out of the aircraft.
Speaking to the media, Puri referred to the status of minorities facing persecution in neighbouring countries and said India takes in everyone, and not just people from certain communities. “I don’t want to get into the politics of what happened in Afghanistan, but as somebody who has lived abroad for nearly four decades intermittently, I know what it is to have as a feeling that you have a home – mother India – to which you can return,” he said.
The Afghan Sikhs had thanked India and the prime minister for providing “sanctuary and comfort to people in times of distress, Hindus and Sikhs in particular [and] all other communities also,” he added.
India has so far evacuated nearly 620 people, including 500 of its nationals, on flights from Kabul, Dushanbe and Doha. Nearly 200 people – including diplomats, officials and security personnel posted at the Indian embassy and some Indian nationals – were flown out of Kabul within two days of the Taliban marching into the Afghan capital on August 15.
The evacuation flights have involved the C-130 and C-17 aircraft of the IAF and Air India’s aircraft. However, flights by military aircraft from the Afghan capital to India have had to take longer routes through Iranian airspace in order to avoid flying over Pakistan.
A day after a secret meeting between CIA chief William Burns and top Taliban political leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday that the US must complete its evacuation of people from Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline set by the Biden administration for withdrawing all American troops.
Details of Burns’ discussions with Baradar were not released, but news agency Associated Press reported that the meeting represented an “extraordinary moment for a CIA that for two decades targeted the Taliban” and that it gave a “sense of the extent of the wrangling happening ahead of the end of America’s two-decade war” in Afghanistan.