Ensure safety of Afghan Sikhs: SGPC to Centre
AMRITSAR: The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and external affairs minister S Jaishankar to ensure the safety of Sikhs living in Afghanistan and make arrangements for their evacuation in view of the deteriorating security situation in that country.
The Taliban completed their sweep of the country’s south on Friday as they took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling Kabul, just weeks before the United States is set to officially end its two-decade war.
In a letter to the PM and
other ministers, SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur said the apex gurdwara body will arrange for the settlement of Sikhs who would come from Afghanistan.
She said only around 20 Sikh families are left in Afghanistan and these too are living under fear.
Meanwhile, the World Punjabi Organisation has appealed to the Union home minister for early evacuation of 257 Afghan Hindu and Sikh families from Kabul.
In a statement, international president of the organisation Vikramjit Singh Sahney said it is the need of the hour to bring the Afghan-origin Sikhs and Hindus safely to India as their lives are in grave danger.
The organisation is ready to do the needful for the rehabilitation of those who would come from Afghanistan and provide them training for joboriented courses free of charge, the statement said.Sahney had last year sent three chartered flights to evacuate 500 Hindu and Sikh families from Kabul, Ghazni and Jalalabad and other areas of Afghanistan.