India on Tuesday gave a reputation to its operation to evacuate its citizens from war-torn Afghanistan. External affairs minister S Jaishankar called it ‘Operation Devi Shakti’ and saluted the efforts of Indian Air Force and Air India.
His tweet came hours after 78 people, including 25 Indian nationals, are delivered to New Delhi from Tajikistan’s Dushanbe during a special Air India flight on Tuesday. They were flown out of Taliban-controlled Kabul to Dushanbe in an aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) every day before.
Three copies (swaroop) of the Sikh sacred writing Guru religious text was also brought back, which were received by Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri. He expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for finishing up rescue operations from Afghanistan and said the govt. is in constant touch with the remaining people over there.
“I want to start out by thanking Prime Minister who made it possible to hold out these rescue operations to bring our brethren who are in difficult circumstances there (Afghanistan),” said Puri.
“I want to go with the Ministry of External Affairs, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan for having implemented this,” he added.
On Monday, India evacuated 75 Sikhs amid the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
India has to this point evacuated quite 800 people since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Nearly 200 more Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are still stranded in Afghanistan. These people have taken shelter at the Karte Parwan gurdwara in Kabul, which is near the airport, in line with Puneet Singh Chandhok, president of the Indian World Forum which has been coordinating the evacuation efforts with the Ministry of External Affairs and therefore the IAF.
Thousands of Afghans are crowding round the Kabul airport for nearly per week in a very desperate try to flee the country fearing the Taliban’s brutality.
India is polishing off the evacuation missions in coordination with the US and a number of other other countries.
