Terrorist rule will not last, says PM
India awaits landing slots at Kabul airport
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that destructive forces and people who follow the ideology of creating empires through terror can dominate for some time, but their existence is not permanent as they cannot suppress humanity forever.
Meanwhile, India continues to await the necessary landing slots from the American forces who are currently controlling Kabul airport to operate special IAF C-17 evacuation flights to the Afghan capital to evacuate Indian citizens still stranded in the strife-torn nation, as well as some Afghan Hindus and Sikhs who want to travel to India. The government is now hoping that the clearances come through by Friday night or Saturday morning, sources said. New Delhi, which was hoping to operate the evacuation flights from Friday itself, is in touch with Washington regularly as the Americans control Kabul airport and its Air Traffic Control.
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar spoke to US secretary of state Antony J. Blinken Thursday evening, with New Delhi giving top priority for evacuating all Indian citizens.
Unconfirmed reports said, meanwhile, that some Taliban fighters had ransacked the closed Indian consulates in Kandahar and Herat. They had also seized some cars and other vehicles belonging to India which were parked in their compounds. These reports could not, however, be officially confirmed.
Sources said the major logistics problem now facing India was how to ensure that the Indian nationals are able to reach the airport when the landing slots are given as the time slots will be quite narrow.
This is because coordination to ensure Indian nationals awaiting evacuation reach Kabul airport at a certain time is an acutely complicated task. Sources said while Delhi had not got any input about specific targeting of Indians by the Taliban, India was trying to ensure that the Indians to be evacuated coordinate among themselves to form groups that can reach the airport together or else stay at a point close to the airport so that they can reach the airport whenever the special flight is scheduled to land.