A week after the Taliban captured Afghanistan, a woman member of the Afghan parliament, Rangina Kargar, arrived at the national capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on August 20 from Turkey.
According to the reports, the Afghan MP Rangina Kargar was not allowed to enter the country as immigration officials asked her to wait. The woman MP has now claimed that she was deported from the IGI airport two hours after reaching Delhi and was sent back by the same airline to Istanbul.
Rangina Kargar, a member of the Wolesi Jirga representing the Faryab province, claims to hold a diplomatic/official passport that facilitates visa-free travel under a reciprocal arrangement with India. Kargar, a Turkmen born in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1985, is not affiliated with any political party and claims to be a women’s rights activist.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Kargar stated that she had travelled to India several times on the same passport in the past and was even used to be waived through earlier, however, the Indian immigration officials asked her to wait as they had to consult their senior officers.
Kargar said, “They deported me, I was treated as a criminal. I was not given my passport in Dubai. It was given back to me only in Istanbul. It was not good what they did to me. The situation has changed in Kabul, and I hope the Indian government helps Afghan women.”
She further added that no reason has been given for her deportation and believes it was probably related to the changed political situation in Kabul.
“I never expected this from Gandhiji’s India. We are always friends with India, we have strategic relations with India, we have historical relations with India. But in this situation, they have treated a woman and a member of Parliament like this. They told me at the airport, ‘Sorry, we cannot do anything for you’,” Kargar claimed.
Interestingly, the Afghan MP did not travel into India in any of the evacuation flights that are being operated by the Indian Air Force and Air India under Operation Devi Shakti. Instead, she chose to fly directly from Turkey via Dubai.
It is worth noting that Rangina Kargar has been living in Canada already, where she has applied for political asylum. Last year, Rangina Kargar had travelled to the US on a political passport seeking asylum.
From the US, she moved to Canada, where she was seeking asylum. The Afghan lawmakers had accused Rangina of receiving her salary and other cash privileges even as she sought asylum. Apparently, she took salary by marking present in the attendance book of the house despite her absence for over 14 months.