News20 Media Network _25-08-2021 :
Over 80,000 people have been evacuated since August 14, but huge crowds remain outside Kabul airport hoping to flee the threat of reprisals and repression in Taliban-led Afghanistan.
Over 80,000 people have been evacuated since August 14, but huge crowds remain outside Kabul airport hoping to flee the threat of reprisals and repression in Taliban-led Afghanistan.
India’s priorities in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban surrounding Kabul and entering the city on 15 August included evacuation of Indian nationals, safety of diplomatic personnel, and assistance to Afghan nationals in distress. The Union government is committed to "full evacuation" of Indians from Afghanistan, where the situation is "critical," foreign minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday during a briefing for leaders of political parties on Afghanistan. The remarks came as an Indian Air Force flight flew in 24 Indians and 11 Nepalese nationals from Afghanistan on Thursday. The briefing and the evacuation were necessitated by the Taliban taking over the Afghan capital Kabul on 15 August, marking a complete takeover of the country from the Ashraf Ghani government.
According to the Press Trust of India, the Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar; leader of the ppposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress; leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury; Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party’s T R Baalu; former prime minister H D Deve Gowda; Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel were among those who attended the meeting. Trade minister Piyush Goyal and parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi joined Jaishankar for the briefing. Foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and India’s ambassador to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon were also present at the briefing.
During the meeting, Jaishankar gave details of measures, some preemptive, taken from as early as last year, shortly after the US and the Taliban signed a pact that secured the safe departure of thousands of US-led international troops from Afghanistan. The pre-emptive measures included withdrawal of personnel from Indian consulates in Herat and Jalalabad in 2020 and those from Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif earlier this year, two people familiar with the development separately said.
According to one of the people cited above, Jaishankar told the leaders of the political parties that India’s priorities in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban surrounding Kabul and entering the city on 15 August included “evacuation of Indian nationals, safety of our diplomatic personnel and assistance to Afghan nationals in distress," besides bringing home stranded nationals of countries in India’s neighbourhood and chairing a special UN Security Council session on Afghanistan.
Among the immediate steps taken was the setting up of a special Afghanistan Cell established in the Indian foreign ministry on a round the clock basis and enabling an E-visa system for Afghan nationals.
So far India has brought back 175 of its embassy personnel, 263 Indian nationals, 112 Afghan nationals including Hindus and Sikhs, 15 third country nationals, the minister was reported as saying. Challenges faced during evacuation included frequent firing incidents near the airport and inside Kabul city, the establishment of multiple checkpoints by various groups, delay in receiving permission for landing of flights, ensuring coordination on the ground given the multiplicity of authorities involved and the requirement of overflight clearances from relevant countries.
The Kabul airport has been secured by US troops but the routes to the airport are littered with checkpoints manned by the Taliban, according to the other person cited above. Ensuring the safe passage of the evacuees through the checkpoints was what the minister was referring to in his remarks. Delays in permission to land aircraft have been due to crowds of Afghan nationals trying to enter the airport in a desperate bid to leave the country to escape Taliban rule. Indian military aircraft have had to take a circuitous route, avoiding Pakistan airspace and flying instead over Iran, to reach Kabul, given the tensions between India and Pakistan
According to the minister, the Afghanistan cell in the foreign ministry that was set up on 16 August, to coordinate repatriation and other requests from Afghanistan in a streamlined manner, has been manned by more than 20 MEA officials. They have attended to 3,014 calls, 7,826 Whatsapp messages and more than 3,100 emails
