Amid escalating fight between Taliban and Afghan forces, India on Tuesday urged its nationals in Afghanistan to leave the country today on a special flight from Mazar-e-Sharif.
A special flight is leaving from Mazar-e-Sharif to New Delhi. Any Indian nationals in and around Mazar-e-Sharif are requested to leave for India in the special flight scheduled to depart late today evening, Consulate General of India in Mazar-e-Sharif said in a tweet.
It asked Indian citizens who want to leave by the special flight to submit the details like their full name and passport number, date of expiry to the consulate immediately. Around 1,500 Indians are currently staying in Afghanistan, according to government data.
The Taliban has taken control of six Afghan provincial capitals. This has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes for the relative safety of Kabul and other centres.
Last month, India had evacuated around 50 diplomats from its Kandahar consulate amid deteriorating security situation and the Taliban capturing new areas around the southern Afghan city.
A spokesperson of the militants on Monday announced on social media that they had launched a four-pronged attack on the city. They have already captured Sheberghan to its west and Kunduz and Taloqan in the east. Now, the insurgents now have their eyes on Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north and fourth largest in the country, whose fall would signal the total collapse of government control in a region.
India has been supporting a national peace and reconciliation process which is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled.
Afghanistan witnessed a series of terror attacks in the last few weeks as the US looked to complete the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan by August-end, ending a nearly two-decade of its military presence in the war-ravaged country.
In other India news, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at the government for its Kashmir doctrine saying he had an old association with the Union Territory.