A special chartered flight from Kabul to New Delhi on Friday will evacuate more than 100 people, most of them Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, and bring back Afghan nationals and medical supplies stranded in India.

The person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be named, said that some Indian nationals are also expected to join the group evacuated from Kabul.

In the past few weeks, Indian authorities and the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi have carefully arranged charter flights.

A video posted on social media showed that a Sikh man among Afghan Sikhs and Hindus was evacuated. He said they waited for nearly three months before boarding the plane. The man said that 102 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus were evacuated to New Delhi.

The group includes women and children and will bring three copies of Guru Granth Sahibs and Hindu religious texts from the ancient Asamai Mandir in Kabul. The chartered flight will bring back nearly 90 Afghan nationals. Most of them came to India for treatment and were stranded after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

People familiar with the matter said that it is also expected to deliver medical supplies as part of India’s humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

There is no official news about development in India.

The last commercial flight on the Kabul-Delhi route took off from the Indian side was operated by Air India on August 15, when Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban. In August, hundreds of Indian nationals, including diplomats and security personnel, were evacuated on special flights of the Indian Air Force.

India also withdrew its ambassador and all other staff from the Kabul delegation — the second effective closure of the embassy since 1996.

However, dozens of Indian nationals remained in Afghanistan after all evacuation flights were stopped due to security issues. The situation was exacerbated by the devastating suicide attack at Kabul Airport on August 26 that killed more than 180 people.

The above-mentioned sources said that many of the Indians then left Afghanistan by land, heading for Iran and Central Asian countries. It is believed that more than a dozen Indians are trapped in Afghanistan and want to return.

People familiar with the matter said that more chartered flights could be arranged to bring people back from Kabul and to send back hundreds of Afghans who are still stranded in India.

Four special planes were recently arranged to send Afghan nationals stranded in India to Kabul via Tehran, but this arrangement was subsequently suspended due to the high cost. Each traveler paid nearly US$850 for this trip—and most Afghans cannot afford the fare.

Complete News Source : Hindustan times