On Friday, India said Afghan citizens who are evacuated and brought to India from Afghanistan can only arrive in the country with a six-month visa and that the government will “take it from there”. “This is the current six-month plan. This is an evolving situation. Making long-term plans has not been the best of ideas, ”Arindam Bagchi, a spokesman for the Union’s Interior Ministry (MEA), told the ANI news agency.
This comes after India announced that all Afghan nationals should arrive in the country only with electronic emergency visas, which the Interior Ministry announced on August 17 in view of the Taliban taking Afghanistan after two decades.
Bagchi also told reporters during a weekly press conference that so far more than 550 people have left Afghanistan for India on six independent flights, either from Kabul or Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe. “Of these, more than 260 were Indians. The government also facilitated the evacuation of Indian citizens through other agencies. We were in contact with several countries like [the] USA and Tajikistan, ”he added.
Referring to the deportation of an Afghan MP, Rangina Kargar, who claimed to have been treated “as a criminal” in India, Baghchi cited “confusion over the electronic emergency visa system” as the reason for the event and described it as “unfortunate”. “.
Read also | Afghan MP complains she was “treated like a criminal”, deported from India: reports
“They reported a group of people assaulting one of our outsourcing agencies where there were Afghan passports with Indian visas,” he told reporters.
A senior official said on Thursday that more than 1,000 visas issued by the Indian embassy had been stolen in Afghanistan due to which more than 11,000 visas granted to Afghans between 12 and 14 were canceled. of August. According to a separate ANI report, India has so far issued about 300 electronic visas to Afghans.
The official also said that intelligence agencies had anticipated that the stolen visas could be misused in the midst of the situation in Afghanistan.
Read also | More than 1,000 visas issued by the Indian embassy were stolen in Afghanistan: report
Bagchi also said India was able to evacuate “some Afghan citizens as well [those] from other countries, ”and that several of them were Sikhs and Hindus.“ Mostly, we will focus on the citizens of India, but we will also be on the side of the Afghans who sided with us, ”he said.
Shedding light on the global evacuation process, the Interior Ministry spokesman said the “vast majority of Indians” who want to return have left Afghanistan. “I don’t have the exact number for that,” Bagchi added.
The evacuation deadline for Afghans and foreigners is just days after the U.S. president recently reinstated his decision to join on Aug. 31, even when Allied forces pushed him into an extension. . His reaffirmation had come shortly after the Taliban issued an ultimatum that an extension would invite “consequences.”
Meanwhile, the blasts at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, which were claimed by the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), reported on Thursday that they killed at least 90 Afghans and 13 United States Navy.