Taliban stops 72 Afghan Sikhs & Hindus from leaving country

Aug. 22: Taliban stopped 72 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, including two Members of Parliament, Narendra Singh Khalsa and Anarkali Kaur representing the minority community from boarding an IAF aircraft, and returned from the Kabul airport Saturday. Taliban fighters stopped them from boarding the IAF plane and said since they are Afghans, they must go back. Now the group has safely returned to Gurdwara Dashmesh Pita Guru Gobind Singhji Karte Parwan in Kabul. From the time the Taliban took over, a group of 280 Afghan Sikhs and 30-40 Hindus have taken shelter at the Karte Parwan Gurdwara in Kabul.

Seeking evacuation to India, this first batch of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus had been waiting outside the airport for over 12 hours since Friday, president of World Punjabi Organisation (WPO) Vikramjit Singh Sahney told news agencies. “They were to board along with nearly 80 Indian citizens,” said Sahney. “Now the only way to evacuate Afghan Sikhs and Hindus is to negotiate with the Taliban and tell them that Sikhs need to visit India for the ongoing 400th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Teg Bahadur ji.”

At the time of the Kabul Gurdwara attack in 2020, there were less than 700 Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan. Since then, at least 400 of them have migrated to India. Once a country which had over one lakh Sikhs and Hindus, members of these communities left Afghanistan after the Mujahideen took over in 1992.