While India’s evacuation efforts in Afghanistan continued to focus on its own nationals, among the close to 400 people flown to India on Sunday were also about 60 Afghans, including 23 Sikhs and Hindus. With an increasing number of people, including foreigners, seeking help from India in their bid to exit Afghanistan, the Centre has deployed a team of diplomats and defence ministry officials at the Kabul airport to coordinate evacuation efforts with the US and other countries who have been facilitating the exercise.
The 60 Afghans, including two lawmakers Anarkali Honaryar and Narender Singh Khalsa, were brought out amid reports that the Taliban were not allowing locals to leave the country. India had earlier assured Afghan nationals, including members of minority communities, with ties to it that it would prioritise visas for them and set up an emergency e-visa service for them.
A total of 168 people, including 107 Indians and 23 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, were flown earlier from Kabul to the Hindon airbase near Delhi in a C-17 heavy-lift military transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF). Another group of 87 Indians and two Nepalese nationals was brought back in a special Air India flight from Dushanbe, a day after they were evacuated to the Tajikistan capital in an IAF 130J transport aircraft, officials said.
Six countries to fly out Indians
Six countries - UK, France, Germany, Qatar, UAE and US- have agreed to take Indian citizens who have been working for them in Afghanistan back to their countries from where India will bring them back. This is expected to ease the pressure on the evacuation process in Kabul, and make repatriation back here smoother.
Meanwhile 146 Indian nationals were flown into India from Doha after they were evacuated from Afghanistan earlier and an IAF C-130 evacuated 78 more people from Kabul on Monday afternoon. These passengers will reach Delhi on August 24 in an Air India special flight.
However, another Indian flight that was ready to evacuate more from Kabul couldn't take off because of firing at the airport. An Afghan security guard associated with Western forces was killed in a gunfight with unidentified assailants, according to international media reports from Kabul, throwing the airport again into chaos after the Taliban had managed to restore some order outside the airport. Official sources reiterated Monday that the first priority was to evacuate Indian nationals.
Afghan crisis shows why CAA is needed
Amid the ongoing evacuation from Afghanistan, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the problems faced by the Sikh and Hindu communities point to why the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was necessary. “Recent developments in our volatile neighbourhood and the way Sikhs and Hindus are going through a harrowing time are precisely why it was necessary to enact the Citizenship Amendment Act,” Puri tweeted.
On Sunday, 168 people including 28 Afghan nationals and two senators landed in India in a special Air Indian Air Force flight. The government has promised help to Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan, as well as its friends in the country who need help.
Earlier in the day Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said he was happy to note that 209 Indian nationals were safely evacuated and flown to Delhi, along with other evacuees, of whom 24 are Afghan Sikhs. “I have been informed that MEA is working on evacuation of another 222 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus. Praying for safety of all,” he said.
The CAA, which came in to force in January last year, provides for citizenship for non-Muslim minorities - Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian communities - from Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, if they fled due to religious persecution and entered India before 2015.