Aircraft carrying Indians takes off from Kabul after they are released by Taliban

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

A C-17 aircraft carrying Indians after they were released from Taliban custody has taken off from Kabul.

Earlier in the morning, the Taliban released over 200 people, many of them Indian nationals and some of them Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, it had taken into custody as they were approaching the Kabul airport for flights out of Afghanistan.

While the Indian nationals were taken to the local police station for verification of their documents, the Afghan Hindus and Sikhs were turned back. Some of the Afghan Hindus and Sikhs are locals while those from outside are huddled at Gurdwara Karta-e-Parwan.

The story was broken by Al-Itteha that said Taliban affiliates, most likely fighters of the Haqqani network, had taken more than 150 people, most of them Indian nationals, from near Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

These people included a number of Afghan citizens and Afghan Sikhs, but most of them were ordinary Indian citizens.

Quoting a person who was travelling with his wife, the group had left for the airport in eight buses at 1 am but could not enter the airport. As they were waiting outside, several unarmed Taliban members came to their side and, after beating several of them, took them all to Tarkhil, Kabul.

The person and his wife threw themselves out of the vehicle and went back to the city.

Taliban spokesman Ahmadullah Waseq denied the allegations of abduction in an interview with the daily Al-Information. He said members of the group were present around Hamid Karzai International Airport and would not allow people to enter the airport.