As many as 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) each day before. “Helping within the safe return from Afghanistan. AI 1956 enroute to Delhi from Dushanbe carrying 78 passengers, including 25 Indian nationals. Evacuees were flown in from Kabul on an @IAF_MCC aircraft,” Arindam Bagchi, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson, tweeted.
Bagchi also posted a brief clip of passengers on board the flight shouting Sikh slogans like Waheguru Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ki Fateh.
India is predicted to evacuate more people, including its own nationals and dozens of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, from Kabul. On Monday, Indian authorities evacuated 75 Sikhs amid the deteriorating situation in war-torn Afghanistan.
Three copies of the Guru Adi Granth and 75 people, including 46 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, also will be evacuated from Afghanistan on an IAF plane. “Three Sri Guru Adi Granth Ji are being escorted to the IAF aircraft at Kabul Airport. Forty-six Afghan Hindus and Sikhs along side stranded Indian nationals are blessed to return on an equivalent flight,” Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted.
Puneet Singh Chandhok, president of the Indian World Forum, said 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 on the brink of the airport,” he told press agency PTI.
India evacuated nearly 540 people, including 475 of its nationals, on several flights from Kabul, Dushanbe and Doha on Sunday. Nearly 200 people – including diplomats, officials and security personnel posted at the Indian embassy and a few Indian nationals – were flown out of Kabul within two days of the Taliban capturing Kabul.
