Telangana workers back home from Afghanistan face uncertainty

HYDERABAD: They served in a hostile atmosphere putting their lives at risk. But having been forced to return from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, hundreds of workers from Telangana stare at a bleak future. Many of them from India and other countries were assisting the NATO troops in the camps.
Initially, the journey back home had begun in an orderly fashion before it disintegrated into chaos once the Taliban drove into Kabul.
In June, at least 30 men from Velpur village in Nizamabad, who served in the NATO and US military camps, were sent back as the US had begun its withdrawal. While these men reached home easily, the life ahead for them and others now waiting for that ticket home is likely to be anything but easy.
But long before these men, some had ended their Afghan adventure and returned home. It was risky in war-torn Afghanistan, but they soon found it wasn’t a cakewalk at home either.
Ramesh Gandhepally from Jankampet village in Velpur, who had returned home in 2018, had put all his money into 30 borewells. All failed. Though he is able to eke out a living from his land now, it’s not enough, he said. Recalling the seven years he spent at the largest camp at Bagram airbase, Ramesh said: “We did not know anything about life outside the camp. If we had to go to some other camp, we were ferried in a chopper.”
Similar is the fate of P Srinivas from the same village who called it quits in 2020 after eight years at the Bagram base. The 45-year-old, a commerce graduate, wants the government to help people like him. “We should be helped with jobs, loans or any means to earn a decent livelihood,” Srinivas said.
“We lived in constant fear of Taliban attack. Being away from family and cut of from outside world in the camp really frustrated me. So I came back. But I don’t think I have a future here without help,” Srinivas said.