The government has told opposition parties that the immediate priority is that the evacuation of all Indians stranded in Afghanistan, sources said on Thursday afternoon. This was after an all-party meet called by Prime Minister Modi to brief the opposition on the “critical” Afghanistan situation.
Around 15,000 people have contacted the govt. seeking assistance in fleeing from Afghanistan, sources said, adding that secretary of state S Jaishankar had also briefed the opposition about evacuation steps being taken by other nations, like the u. s., Russia and China.
India is trying to evacuate as many of us as possible from Afghanistan, Mr Jaishankar was quoted as saying by wire service PTI. He underlined that evacuating Indians is that the “top priority”.
Sources also said the govt. had told opposition leaders the Taliban broke promises made to the us and its allies in Doha within the weeks up to its occupation of Kabul.
Last week – before the Taliban took control of Kabul – press agency Reuters said the Islamist group had agreed to a two-week cease-fire in exchange for President Ashraf Ghani’s resignation and also the start of talks on putting in a transitional government.
Apart from Mr Jaishankar, the meeting was attended by Union Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Piyush Goyal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi.
Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge (Leader of the Opposition within the Rajya Sabha) and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (party chief within the Lok Sabha) were among the opposition leaders present, as were NCP chief Sharad Pawar, the DMK’s TR Baalu, and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda.
India, which has been allowed to control two flights per day from Kabul, has evacuated over 300 of its citizens to date. an identical number of citizens from other nations have also been brought back.
However, evacuations are slowed by the volatile security situation in and round the airport in Kabul, control of which is split between occupying Taliban forces and also the u. s..
The Foreign Ministry has said the govt. is committed to their safe return, adding that the most challenge is that the operational status of the airport. Evacuations have also been full of the actual fact that some Indians had not registered on arrival in Kabul, making it difficult to locate them.
The last batch of evacuation flights from Kabul landed in India on Sunday – a special Air Force plane carrying around 168 people, including 107 Indian citizens, was among those flights.
The evacuees also included some Indian Sikhs who had taken refugee at a gurudwara in Kabul.
An Afghan woman who was on the Air Force flight told ANI true in her country was “deteriorating”, which the Taliban had burned down her house.
Indians were also flown in on three other flights – operated by Air India, IndiGo and Vistara. These flights were routed via Tajikistan and Qatar, because of safety concerns over some flight paths.
On August 17, the Prime Minister chaired a gathering of the cupboard Committee on Security to watch the safe evacuation of Indians stranded in Afghanistan.
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan 10 days ago, after President Ashraf Ghani fled and therefore the group walked into Kabul with no opposition. This was after a staggeringly fast rout of major cities, and following twenty years of war that has claimed many thousands of lives.
Since then a minimum of 20 people have died at Kabul airport as thousands rush to escape the country, consistent with a report by Reuters that quoted an unnamed NATO official.
