They made us sit in open area for hours. Thought we might be killed: Evacuee recounts Taliban horror....
They made us sit in open area for hours. Thought we might be killed: Evacuee recounts Taliban horror....
Amid the Taliban takeover of war-ravaged Afghanistan, India and the United States have begun their evacuation process from Kabul. But the Indian nationals who have been evacuated to India still shudder to recount their ordeal of dealing with the group days before they left the war-torn country.
One such evacuee, Jeet Bahadur Thapa, recalls how he and other Indians thought they might be killed by the Taliban gunmen any moment as the Taliban gunmen made them sit on the ground in an open space at Kabul airport for five hours, before they could leave for India.
The 30-year-old was working as a supervisor in a consultancy company in Afghanistan Atleast 118 Indians worked in the company and all of them started moving towards the Denmark embassy, which was 30 km away, with the hope that they would get a safe passage to India.
"There was the fear of the Taliban. Some robbers stopped us and robbed us of about Rs one lakh and all our other belongings. Some accosted us shortly before we arrived at the embassy and asked if we were Hindus. They let us go after we introduced ourselves as Indian citizens," Jeet Bahadur Thapa, a native of Chinore village in Uttar Pradesh's Shahajanpur, said.
He further said that when they told the Taliban of getting robbed, the members denied being involved in such activities and claimed that local criminals might have done it.
"Many people were injured after walking for so long in the dark," he said.
On August 18, they reached the airport area in Kabul where lakhs of people had gathered in a desperate bid to flee the country. All of them spent three days there with barely any food.
"The Taliban gunmen present there made all the Indians sit on the ground in an open space for about five hours. We sat silently in fear that the Taliban who had modern weapons might kill us," Jeet Thapa said, adding that when an army plane arrived, they left for Delhi on August 22 morning.
Stating that there is an undeclared curfew in Afghanistan, Jeet Thapa said all companies and offices are closed and no one is leaving their houses. "Women and children in Afghanistan are very afraid and that's why no women are seen on the roads," he said.
Replying to a question, Jeet Thapa said he did not see the Taliban committing atrocities on women but people fear them due to their past actions.
"The Taliban are on the streets due to which there is an atmosphere of fear. The Taliban are constantly appealing to the people of the country that no person should leave Afghanistan and that they won't let anyone cause any trouble," he said.