After Harrowing Taliban Experience, Nearly 400 More Reach India: 10 Facts

Afghanistan-Taliban Crisis: India has evacuated all embassy staff but an estimated 1,000 citizens remain in several Afghan cities.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi posted pictures of the evacuation efforts

New Delhi/ Ghaziabad: India today evacuated 392 people in three flights as part of its mission to bring Indians and Afghan partners from Kabul in the backdrop of increasing Taliban hostility and deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

Here are top 10 updates on this big story:

  1. A group of 168 people, including Afghan lawmakers Anarkali Honaryar and Narender Singh Khalsa and their families, was evacuated from Kabul this morning people familiar with the evacuation mission said.
  2. All evacuees will be moved to the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara next. Many of the evacuees are from a Gurdwara in Kabul, where they have been staying for days.
  3. Up to 135 Indians, earlier evacuated from Kabul to Doha in the past few days by the US and NATO aircraft, were today flown back from the Qatari capital to Delhi in a special flight.
  4. Another group of 87 Indians and two Nepal nationals was brought back in a special Air India flight from Dushanbe, a day after it was evacuated to the Tajikistan capital in an IAF 130J transport aircraft, officials said.
  5. With Sunday's evacuation, the number of people brought back by India from Kabul has reached around 590 since last Monday, PTI reported.
  6. "I feel like crying...Everything that was built in the last 20 years is now finished. It's zero now," a visibly emotional Afghanistan senator Narender Singh Khalsa told news agency ANI upon landing in Delhi.
  7. India has been allowed by American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, which control the Hamid Karzai International Airport, to operate two flights per day from Kabul to evacuate its nationals stranded in Afghanistan, ANI reported quoting government sources.
  8. In a string of tweets, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi posted details of the evacuation efforts by Air India and IndiGo flights. He also posted a short video clip where the evacuees can be seen chanting "Bharat Mata Ki Jai", adding more evacuation flights will follow.
  9. Earlier, Indian citizens waiting outside Kabul airport for evacuation flights were taken to a nearby police station for questioning and checking of travel documents, a top government source said, amid worrying reports from local media that they had been abducted by the Taliban, which took control of the capital city last Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
  10. The Taliban's 'picking up' of Indian citizens comes hours after an Air Force transport aircraft managed to evacuate around 85 Indians from Kabul.

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