‘You can’t imagine how great it’s to be back home’

Rajkot: The emergency — Indian air force c-17 heavy lift transport aircraft — sent by the union government to evacuate Indian citizens and diplomats stuck in strife-torn Afghanistan returned with about 150 passengers from Kabul and landed at Jamnagar airbase on Tuesday morning for refuel.
The aircraft brought home Indian diplomats including Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, Rudrendra Tandon, who expressed his immense relief at being able to return home safe. “You can’t imagine how great it’s to be back home,” said Tandon, while talking to media persons and added that all efforts are on to bring every Indian citizen back home safely. He also said that the India is also concerned about the welfare of Afghanistan.
Talking to TOI, district collector Jamnagar. P S Zamsingh said, “There were para military force staff, diplomats, civilans including employees of PSUs in the aircraft that landed at around 11.15am. Passengers from two different aircraft flew to Delhi at around 4pm. We welcomed them with food and beverages.”
The passengers were garlanded by officials of local administration and politicians while onlookers chanted ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.
During his stopover in Jamnagar, Tandon talked to media persons and said that the situation in Kabul is complex and “quite fluid”. He said that all 192 personnel of the mission including employees of the Indian embassy and Air India were evacuated from Afghanistan in the past three days in two phases.
“Indian citizens residing in Afghanistan are in distress because of the fast changing situation. Whoever reached the embassy was taken inside and provided security and an avenue for exit,” said Tandon, adding that the whole evacuation programme was monitored at the highest level.
Regarding Afghan people, Tandon said that India hasn’t abandoned them. “We are much concerned about their welfare and our old relationship with them remains strong. Going forward, we will try and continue to interact with them, though I can’t say in what form and manner, as the situation is changing continuously. However, we are continuously monitoring the situation as we still have some of our citizens in that country and Air India will continue to run its commercial service to Kabul as long as Kabul airport functions,” he said, adding that the ministry of external affairs has opened a help desk which is already operational.
Temporary Air India has suspended the service to Kabul, the situation doesn’t allow commercial flights to operate. While appreciating the hospitality at Jamnagar, Tandon shared that the Indian embassy actually doesn’t have exact details about how many more Indians may still be stuck there as these people do not get themselves registered with the embassy.
“Passengers were given lunch after landing at Jamnagar,” said MOS food and civil supply Dharmendrasinh Jadeja. In a release, Gujarat government said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “personally overseeing the evacuation of Indian nationals and officials stranded in Afghanistan”.