ITBP personnel at Kabul embassy brought back to India too
Darpan News Desk IANS, 17 Aug, 2021 11:11 AM
New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) on Tuesday said all its security personnel deployed for guarding the Indian Embassy at Kabul have returned back to India along with the embassy officials.
Amidst the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the Indian government decided to recall all embassy personnel from Kabul and they were evacuated by an Indian Air Force C-17 aircraft on Tuesday. The IAF aircraft brought back 120 Indian officials, including the last batch of the Indian embassy staff and ITBP personnel, from the Kabul airport.
They also said that ITBP troopers were staying there as Ambassador Rudrendra Tandon, along with some embassy staff, was there and the Indian Embassy in Kabul was functioning with reduced staff. However, after evaluating the critical situation in the war-torn country, the government decided to call them back.
The Kabul airport was closed on Monday evening but it was reopened for evacuation operations on Tuesday morning by the American agencies. Officials in the security set up said that for evacuating Indian officials and staffers from Afghanistan, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval spoke to his US counterpart Jake Sullivan as US troops are deployed at the airport.
The Indian government had already evacuated majority of the officials from there, anticipating the Taliban advance into Kabul, and also advised all Indian citizens to leave the country at the earliest. The families of the diplomats and embassy personnel have been evacuated last week and the Indian consulates have already been closed a fortnight ago.
Water-logging was reported from chronic spots of Dadar, Parel, Wadala, Sion, besides low-lying areas in Malad, Santacruz, Dahisar. While the suburban services on the Central Railway were hit badly with delays of over 30-minutes due to speed restrictions, Western Railway traffic has not been affected.
Thousands of Congress workers greeted Priyanka at the Chaudhary Charan Singh airport and a long winding convoy of vehicles accompanied her as she headed for the Congress headquarters, covering a distance of about 13 kilometres.
Two men aged 32 and 40 drowned in the swimming pool of a hotel located on the Pataudi-Helimandi Road in Gurugram's Pataudi area on Friday. The police have identified the deceased persons as Rajesh and Sher Singh, both residents of Jatauli village in Pataudi.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday slammed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over its criticism of his government's decision on debt waiver for farm labourers and landless farmers, saying it exposed the Arvind Kejriwal party's "anti-farmer stance".
With the detailed project report completed and land acquisition started, the work on building India's longest (11.80 km) road tunnel linking Thane-Borivali - passing beneath the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) - will start from March 2022, Maharashtra PWD Minister Eknath Gaikwad said on Thursday.
The Punjab BJP feels that anger among the farmers in the state against the three new farm laws and its leadership is at the behest of the ruling Congress party. Recently over a dozen BJP leaders were taken hostage in Rajpura in Patiala by protesting farmers.