Operation Devi Shakti: India evacuated 565 people from Afghanistan

Amidst the turmoil situation in Afghanistan which often have led to firing incidents near Kabul airport, India has managed to evacuate a total of 565, including its nationals, Afghans and third-country citizens since August 15, the day Taliban seized the war-torn country. 

India codenamed the evacuation operation as 'Devi Shakti' earlier this week. 

Also Read: Pakistan is like 'second home'; ISIS has no presence in Afghanistan: Taliban spokesperson

Among the people brought to India include 175 Indian embassy personnel, 263 Indian nationals, 112 Afghan citizens and 15 people from other countries. 

Among the Afghan nationals evacuated were two minority MPs belonging to the Sikh faith.   

A lot of challenges were encounter while carrying out the evacuation operation by Indian Air Force transport aircraft C-17 and C-130J and civilian planes.

The challenges included frequent firing incidents near the airport and in Kabul, multiple checkpoints set up by various groups, lack of space at the airport, delay in landing permissions and overflight clearances from relevant countries and coordination on the ground among others. 

Asianet Newsable had reported earlier about the delay in the evacuation drive due to a lack of coordination on the grounds. 

Just a day after the collapse of the democratically-elected government under Ashraf Ghani and capture by the Taliban, India had set a Special Afghan Cell to coordinate the repatriation and other requests from Afghanistan in a streamlined manner. 

Also Read: Taliban stops 140 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus from travelling to India

The helpline has been operational 24x7 to respond to requests over calls, emails and WhatsApp messages. Over 20 personnel from the External Affairs Ministry have been deputed in the cell to make the process smooth. 

As per the sources in the government establishment, so far over 3,000 emergency calls have been attended while 7,826 WhatsApp messages were received by Cell. Over 3,100 queries on e-mails were responded to.

Also read: Escaped journalist recounts Afghan women horror: Taliban search house-to-house for women, girls for marriage

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• Operation Devi Shakti
• Indians in Kabul
• evacuation
• Afghanistan
• Taliban
• Indian government