How India managed to evacuate its people from Kabul | Economic Times

Over the last two days, India successfully evacuated 120 people, including the Indian ambassador and embassy staff. The evacuation, which was earlier supposed to be carried out by Air India, was taken over by the Indian Air Force, owing to the quickly deteriorating situation in war-torn Kabul.The operation saw a C-17 Globemaster-III aircraft flying from the Hindon airbase near Delhi late on Sunday night. To avoid Pakistani airspace, the aircraft took a circuitous route through Iran, touching down at the Ayni airbase in Tajikistan.With the rush at Kabul airport IAF closely worked with the US forces, who have been controlling the air traffic control, to get in and out of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport with minimum disruption.Roadblocks put up by gun-toting Taliban militia made movement nearly impossible within Kabul, leading to many Indian embassy staff failing to reach the airport on Monday morning, TOI quoted sources."It was a tricky situation, and Monday was especially tense, but the IAF pulled it off," said a source, after the second C-17 finally landed in India on Tuesday with around 140 Indians, including diplomatic staff and ITBP security personnel. The first C-17 had returned to India on Monday morning with just about 50 people who managed to reach the Kabul airport in time.Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday and took over the presidential palace. Thousands of people rushed to the airport in order to leave the country leading to chaotic scenes there . It made impossible for any aircraft to the airport.Once in India, the C-17 landed at Jamnagar airbase, from where two IAF transport aircraft later transported the passengers to the Hindan airbase in Ghaziabad.India is also exploring options to hire charter planes to evacuate more Indians from Afghanistan, sources said.The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday that the government is committed to the safe return of all Indian nationals from Afghanistan and will institute flight arrangements once Kabul airport is open for commercial operations.The MEA said in a release that the main challenge for travel to and from Afghanistan is the operational status of Kabul airport and this has been discussed at high levels with India's partners, including by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.