A security guard has been killed and several members of the Sikh community are believed to be trapped inside Gurdwara Karte Parwan in the Afghan capital of Kabul after Islamic State terrorists attacked the shrine on Saturday morning. The terrorists entered the Gurdwara at around 8.30am IST after shooting the security guard dead.
Kabul: Smoke billowing from Karte Parwan Gurdwara.
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The attack on Sikh temple followed an explosion outside the gate of the Gurdwara. About 25-30 Afghan Hindus and Sikhs were inside the Gurdwara for morning prayers when the attackers entered the premises. While many of them managed to flee, seven to eight people are believed to be trapped inside or feared to be dead, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reports reaching New Delhi suggest three Taliban soldiers have been wounded while at least two attackers have been cornered in the fight.
India expressed concern over the reports of the attack, saying it is currently closely monitoring the situation and waiting for further details on the unfolding developments.
India in the past has offered all support to evacuate Karte Parwan Sikhs, a vulnerable minority community in the country ruled by Sunni Pashtun group.
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The attack comes days after the media wing of the Islamic States Khorasan Province, an affiliate of the terror outfit Islamic State, released a video threatening to repeat the 2020 Gurdwara attack. Though the terror outfit also comprises of Sunni Pashtuns, they are sworn enemies of the ruling Taliban. They have been responsible behind killings of hundreds of members of minority communities, including Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Sikhs.
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The attack comes days after the media wing of the Islamic States Khorasan Province, an affiliate of the terror outfit Islamic State, released a video threatening to repeat the 2020 Gurdwara attack. Though the terror outfit also comprises of Sunni Pashtuns, they are sworn enemies of the ruling Taliban. They have been responsible behind killings of hundreds of members of minority communities, including Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Sikhs.
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The Sikh community has become even more vulnerable to deadly attacks by terror outfits after the Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021.
In March 2020, 27 Sikhs were killed and several were injured in a deadly attack by Islamic State terrorists at Sri Guru Har Rai Sahib gurudwara in Kabul's Short Bazaar area.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/World News/1 killed, many trapped inside Kabul Gurdwara in Islamic State attack
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