India shuts last consulate in Afghanistan and evacuates citizens

New Delhi urges its diplomats and citizens to take the special flight home


Reuters August 10, 2021
Afghan policemen stand guard next to Indian and Afghan national flags, at a check point in Kabul city May 12, 2011. PHOTO: REUTERS

NEW DELHI:

India sent a military plane to northern Afghanistan on Tuesday to pull out its citizens, officials said, as fighting raged between Afghan security forces and the advancing Taliban.

The Indian government shut its consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north, and urged its diplomats and Indian citizens to take the special flight home.

Taliban fighters have overrun six provincial capitals in recent days in the north, west and south of Afghanistan.

India, which has invested millions of dollars in development projects across Afghanistan, has now closed all its consulates, leaving only the embassy in Kabul operational, a government official said.

India's main opposition Congress party urged the government to help evacuate Afghanistan's tiny Sikh and Hindu communities, to protect them from any attack by the Taliban.

Congress official Jaiveer Shergill estimated that there were around 750 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus in the country.

COMMENTS (1)

Azfar khan | 3 years ago | Reply Then and of India terror network in Afghanistan is coming to an end. All these 6 consulates were facilitating terrorism and training TTP and BLA terrorists in Afghanistan. Now all of it is gone. It is a double whammer of India.
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