NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, AUG 16
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has operated a special flight which landed in Afghanistan’s Kabul on Monday to evacuate stranded Indians, including embassy staff and their families. Kabul has been gripped by fear and panic after Taliban fighters entered the Afghan capital city on Sunday. People familiar with the development said the government will not put the lives of its staffers at the Indian embassy and Indian citizens in Kabul at any risk.
A fleet of the C-17 Globemaster military transport aircraft of the IAF was kept on standby to undertake evacuation missions. One C-17 Globemaster was sent to the war-torn country on Sunday and returned to Delhi with Indian citizens on Monday morning, while another took off on Monday from the Hindon air force station in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad but had to be diverted to Tajikistan because of the chaos at the Kabul airport. Later, it landed at the airport to evacuate citizens.
Quoting government officials, Hindustan Times reported that at least 200 Indian officials, including diplomats and security, are waiting to be back to India. “Taking the staff from the embassy compound to the airport is also a challenge,” HT quoted an official on condition of anonymity.
Earlier in the day, Air India cancelled its Delhi-Kabul-Delhi flight that was scheduled to operate to avoid Afghanistan airspace after it was declared “uncontrolled” by authorities at the Kabul airport, senior officials said. It was the only commercial flight scheduled to operate between India and Afghanistan on Monday, and Air India is the only carrier that has been operating flights between the two countries.
Moreover, the carrier on Monday diverted its two flights coming to Delhi from the US toward Sharjah in the UAE for the same reason, they said. The airline’s San Francisco-Delhi flight as well as Chicago-Delhi flight were diverted towards Sharjah on Monday.
Five people were killed in chaos at Kabul airport on Monday, witnesses said, as US troops guarded the evacuation of embassy staff a day after the Taliban seized the Afghan capital and declared the war was over and peace prevailed.
It was not immediately clear how the victims died. A US official said troops had fired in the air to deter people trying to force their way onto a military flight that was set to take US diplomats and embassy staff out of the fallen city.
One witness, waiting for a flight out for more than 20 hours, said it was unclear if the five had been shot or killed in a stampede. US officials at the airport were not immediately available for a comment.
As the situation deteriorated in Kabul, India, the United States and the embassies of several other countries began evacuating their staff from the Afghan city.
In the last few days, the Taliban fighters have swept through most parts of Afghanistan, seizing control of around 25 of the 34 provincial capitals, including cities such as Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad.
