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Thousands of passengers stranded in Jammu as Punjab farmers block railway routes demanding unpaid dues from state govt

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Thousands of passengers stranded in Jammu as Punjab farmers block railway routes demanding unpaid dues from state govt

On August 20, farmers in Punjab initiated an indefinite agitation in Jalandhar and blocked train movement on Ludhiana-Jammu and Ludhiana-Amritsar routes. Notably, the current agitation is not due to the three Agriculture laws that were enacted in September last year, but it is due to the dues of over 200 crore that has not been paid by the Congress-led Punjab government. The agitating farmers have demanded to increase sugarcane prices from Rs.310/quintal to Rs.358/quintal and clear pending dues. The agitation is backed by 32 farmer unions.

News agency PTI quoted Northern Railways officials saying, “A total of 40 trains were cancelled since Friday.” He further added that some trains were rerouted to different routes on Friday. However, due to heavy rainfall in Delhi, twenty trains bound for Jammu were further cancelled, which would be scheduled later. “Some trains scheduled later in the day are likely to leave the Jammu station for their destinations.” On Saturday, Northern Railway tweeted that over 100 trains were affected due to agitation.

Thousands of passengers stranded in Jammu

Thousands of passengers from Uttar Pradesh and other states were stranded in Jammu. Reports suggest that initially, they were unable to get any information from the railway authorities that led to a spike in demand for other modes of transport. Seeing the desperation of the tourists and pilgrims, the local tour and bus operators reportedly increased the fair price by several folds.

‘It’s worse than Taliban’

Several local news channels interviewed the stranded passengers and showed their ordeal. On passenger who almost broke down into tears on camera said that the situation was worse than Taliban at the station. “In Afghanistan, at least attempts are being made to evacuate the Indians, but here were are stranded with no information, money, food or shelter,” the passenger from Uttar Pradesh said who was visiting Mata Vaishno Devi temple with family. He added that whenever farmers protest against the government, it is the public that faces the problems.

Several passengers complained that the local tour operators had doubled the fair charges. Another passenger blamed the government for the chaos and said that there were no representatives of the government at the station to tell them if they were planning anything to ensure a safe journey for the stranded passengers back to their home states.

‘We will miss the festival’

Some passengers were seen worried about missing Rakshabandhan. “We are stranded here. Our children are alone. I do not know if we will be able to make it before the festival,” said a passenger from UP. Notably, there was confusion on the reason for the agitation and blockade among the local media and passengers. They kept repeating that it is because of the ongoing agitation against the laws, but in reality, it is because of the unpaid dues from the Punjab government.

‘We are out of funds’

Several passengers claimed that they were travelling on a strict budget and such problems have put them in a problematic situation as they are out of funds. “They are asking for thousands of rupees to take us to Delhi. Then we have to arrange for transport to Balia. We do not have that much money,” said a passenger from UP.

‘Public will stop supporting the farmers’

In an interview with JK Media, a passenger said that if farmers keep causing trouble for the general public, they will stop supporting them. “It will cause a problem for farmers. The public will start to believe what they are doing is wrong. If you cause trouble for the general public, how will they support you?” he asked.

Co-founder of all-girls Afghan school burns her students’ records to protect young girls amidst fear of persecution

OpIndia Staff
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Co-founder of all-girls Afghan school burns her students’ records to protect young girls amidst fear of persecution

The co-founder of the lone all-girls boarding school in Afghanistan has set fire to all documents of her students seeking to protect them and their families amidst the renewed fears of persecution of women in the country following the takeover by the Taliban.

Sharing a series of tweets and a video of burning down the records, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the principal of the School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA), said her aim was not to erase them but to protect students and their families from the Taliban.

“Nearly 20 years later, as the founder of the only all-girls boarding school in Afghanistan, I’m burning my students’ records not to erase them, but to protect them and their families,” she tweeted.

In her tweet, Rasikh said that while the world focused on those Afghans who were managing to get out, she was working to ensure the education of girls who have no way out of the war-torn country.

“My students, colleagues and I are safe with enormous gratitude to our ever vibrant global village. The time to appropriately express my gratitude will come. But right now, there are many who aren’t or increasingly don’t feel safe. I’m broken & devastated for them,” Shabana Basij-Rasikh said in her tweets.

She further said that she was only putting out this statement and showing the videos to reassure families of theirs and their children’s safety. “As I focus on the safety and well-being of my students, I don’t plan on making any further comments,” she said.

She also posted a link seeking donations for her school, SOLA (School of Leadership Afghanistan).

Ever since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, there has been a surge in violence against women, particularly young girls, as the Jihadist outfit intends to use them as their sex slaves.

Door-to-door hunt for girls as young as 12, Taliban looking for sex slaves

Earlier, there were reports that the Taliban gangs are targeting children as young as 12 during their hunt for sex slaves since they took over Afghanistan. Women and girls are among the most at-risk Afghanis under the new Islamist regime after the Jihadist organisation launched a door-to-door search for sex slaves.

From demanding lists of women and girls in different regions to forcing marriages on young girls, reports of the Taliban’s atrocities are making headlines. The unmarried and widowed women and girls between the ages of 12 to 45 are termed as “qhanimat” or spoils of the war by the Taliban. They are reportedly being divided among the members of the group.

According to Shukria Barakzai, Afghan politician and journalist, the stories of the Taliban’s atrocities against women and girls are horrifying. She wrote in The Daily Mail, “The gouging of a woman’s eyes in front of her terrified family; girls as young as 12 wrenched from the arms of their weeping mothers to become sex slaves for Taliban ‘warriors’; men punished or even killed for ‘offences’ as simple as listening to the ‘wrong’ music, or for daring to be ‘educated’,”

She further said that in some villages, Taliban members conducted door-to-door searches looking for young girls to forcibly marrying them and pushing them into a life of sex slaves. She added, “So determined are they that no virgin will escape their clutches that they check drawers, wardrobes and even suitcases in homes where desperate mothers deny they have young daughters to ensure they are telling the truth.”

It was reported that an Afghan woman was set on fire by Talibanis for “bad cooking”, and many others are being forced into sex slavery.

Osama bin Laden believed Joe Biden would be an ‘incompetent’ president and lead US into crisis, barred Al Qaeda from assassinating him

OpIndia Staff
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Osama bin Laden believed Joe Biden would be an ‘incompetent’ president and lead US into crisis, barred Al Qaeda from assassinating him

Slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had backed Joe Biden for the post of the US President in 2010, saying that he would “lead the US into a crisis”, a seized letter has revealed.

According to reports, a 48-page letter written by Osama bin Laden, which was recovered along with a series of documents from the 9/11 mastermind, has reportedly shown that Osama bin Laden had banned Al-Qaeda from assassinating Joe Biden as he believed that he would turn out to be an “incompetent President”.

Osama bin Laden had written the letter to an aide identified as ‘Brother Shaykh Mahmud’ or Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.

In the letter dated May 2010, Osama bin Laden had told his followers that he has no plans to assassinate Joe Biden because he deemed him “totally unprepared” to lead the United States. The letter was found in a trove of documents at the Pakistan compound where US special forces killed him in 2011. 

“Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the US into a crisis,” Osama bin Laden categorically stated in his letter.

The letter was uncovered in Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan hide-out after US forces killed him in a raid on May 2, 2011/ Image Source: Supplied.

Instead, bin Laden urged his followers to keep an eye on the then-President Obama. He told his aides there was a high priority to target the aircraft of Barack Obama, then US President, and CIA director at the time David Petraeus.

“They are not to target visits by US Vice President Biden. The groups will remain on the lookout for Obama or Petraeus,” bin Laden wrote.

“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of the infidelity, and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency for the remainder of the term, as it is the norm over there,” the letter read.

In the letter, Osama bin Laden had also discussed the need to direct resources away from terror attacks in other Muslim countries and instead focus on direct attacks against the US.

On page 36, he had revealed his desire to form two hit squads – one in Pakistan and another in Afghanistan – who would plot attacks against then-US President Barack Obama and former-CIA director David Petraeus, should they visit either country.

“As for Petraeus, he is the man of the house in this last year of the war, and killing him would alter the war’s path,” the letter said.

The documents, penned between 2006 and 2011, are now publicly available through West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.

The document was first made public in 2012. However, the letter has attained new significance amidst the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan that has led to the onslaught of the Taliban. US President Joe Biden is facing mounting criticism worldwide for abandoning Afghans to their fate by the sudden withdrawal of the US forces.

On July 8, President Biden said it was ‘highly unlikely’ the Taliban would take control of Afghanistan and denied there would be chaos in Kabul. However, a month later, the Taliban has overrun most of the provinces in the war-torn country and has now taken complete control of Kabul – the seat of power in Afghanistan.

J&K govt activates online grievance redressal portal for Kashmiri migrants to address property-related issues

OpIndia Staff
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J&K govt activates online grievance redressal portal for Kashmiri migrants to address property-related issues

The Jammu and Kashmir government has activated an online grievance redressal portal for the Kashmiri migrants, where they can lodge their grievances related to their properties in Kashmir, if any. The service can be availed through the J & K government’s official website ‘Relief and Rehabilitation (M)’ (www.jkmigrantrelief.nic.in).

The link to the form is provided under the tab – Important links on the home page.

The link to the property-related grievance form for migrant Kashmiris on the J&K Govt website

The form for the grievance redressal portal reads: “J&K Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restrain on distress sale) Act,1997, provides for safe custody of the immovable properties of migrants with concerned District Magistrates of J&K. However, not withstanding in case any migrant wishes to bring any issue or concern related to his/her immovable property to the notice of the Government, he/she may fill details in the below provided form. The information so provided shall be shared by the Department of Disaster Management, Relief, Rehablitation and Reconstruction with the department of Revenue for necessary action for resolution of the grievance in a fixed time frame.”

The form has different sections, where the applicant is required to fill in his/her personal details, after submission of which, the applicant-migrant will be contacted on mobile/email by the concerned District Magistrate.

The form

It is pertinent to note here that on Friday, August 20, the Jammu and Kashmir government had issued an order for the preservation and protection of immovable assets of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. The relief/revenue department had been asked to prepare an online portal where migrants can file applications for correction of records or demarcation and removal of encroachments, trespassing and alienation by way of fraud or distress.

Principal Secretary (Revenue Department) Shaleen Kabra said in an order that the applications filed on the portal would be disposed of in a fixed time frame under the Public Services Guarantee Act, 2011 by revenue authorities under intimation to the applicant.

“The competent authority (district magistrates) shall undertake survey or field verification of migrant properties and update all registers within a period of 15 days and submit compliance reports to the divisional commissioner, Kashmir,” the order read.

Last year, the central government had integrated Jammu and Kashmir grievance system with the central grievance portal to ensure prompt action. With this, Jammu and Kashmir had become the first union territory in the country to have its district-level grievance offices integrated with the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) portal.

In addition to this, the government had on August 11, 2021, also informed that people returning to Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 can approach DMs to remove encroachment on their properties. In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, had said: “Under the J&K Migrant Immovable Property Act, 1997, DMs of concerned districts are the legal custodians of the immovable properties of migrants, who take suo motto action on eviction proceedings in cases of encroachment.”

Residents of Mirzapur urge Uttar Pradesh government to rename the district as ‘Vindhyanchal Nagar’

OpIndia Staff
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Residents of Mirzapur urge Uttar Pradesh government to rename the district as ‘Vindhyanchal Nagar’

There has been a growing demand from the residents of Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh to change the name of the district to ‘Vindhyanchal Nagar’.

According to the reports, Bharatiya Savarna Sangh recently passed a resolution to change the name of Mirzapur to ‘Vindhyanchal Nagar’. The organisation has also written a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath urging the government to rename the city.

According to Avdesh Singh, the Vice President of Bharatiya Savarna Sangh said that the district gets its name from the Hindu deity Maa Vindhyavasini and added that it was befitting for the government to rename Mirzapur as ‘Vindhyanchal Nagar’. Singh said that the renaming of the district and developing it as a Vindhya corridor would boost the economic and cultural prospects of the region.

The BJP has also joined the chorus demanding the renaming of the city to ‘Vindhyanchal Nagar’. BJP MLA Ratnakar Mishra has appealed to the state government to change the name of Mirzapur. He said that the residents have been demanding it for a long time to change the name of Mirzapur to Vindhya Dham, however, the government has not taken any decision regarding the same, he said.

The demand to rename Mirzapur comes on the heels of the recent decision by the Zila Panchayat of Aligarh to rename the city as ‘Harigarh’.

Last week, the Zila Panchayat of Aligarh had passed a resolution seeking to rename the city as Harigarh. The proposal was unanimously ratified in the first meeting of the panchayat, with 50 out of 72 members in attendance.

Besides, a proposal was also passed to name the airport of Aligarh after BJP leader Kalyan Singh, who was the resident of the “Lock City” and the chief minister of the state during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement when the controversial Babri structure was levelled to the ground in Ayodhya.

In addition to Aligarh, the Zila Panchayat of Mainpuri also passed a resolution seeking to rechristen the town as Mayan Nagar, after sage Mainpuri, who founded the present day Mainpuri, members said. Earlier this month, a similar proposal to rename Firozabad to Chandra Nagar was passed by the Firozabad district panchayat. According to locals, King Chandrasen lived in Firozabad, and because it was earlier known as Chandravar Nagar till about 1560 AD, the city should be renamed Chandra Nagar.

USA: Senate Majority Leader spotted dancing around with comedian in public as trapped Americans in Afghanistan get beaten by Taliban

OpIndia Staff
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USA: Senate Majority Leader spotted dancing around with comedian in public as trapped Americans in Afghanistan get beaten by Taliban

On Saturday (August 21), the United States Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer sparked a controversy after he was seen dancing backstage with late-night show host Stephen Colbert in New York City (NYC). Schumer was attending the ‘We Love NYC’ concert at a time when thousands of US citizens are stranded in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The video of the United States Senate Majority leader, breaking into a dance, was shared by Bill Neidhart, who serves as the press secretary of NYC Mayor de Blasio. “Backstage antics,” he tweeted. Soon, netizens slammed Chuck Schumer on social media for his insensitivity and inability to comprehend the severity of the Taliban crisis in Afghanistan.

Jesse Kelly, the host of the ‘I’m Right’ show, tweeted, “10,000 American civilians trapped behind an army of barbarians in a foreign land. This is how much they care.”

“The pain Senator Schumer feels about Afghanistan is palpable,” remarked character actor Nick Seary.

Republican leader Lee Zeldin wrote, “Maybe once Senator Schumer is done dancing with Stephen Colbert, he can call Joe Biden& get him to sign the Pre-Landfall Emergency Declaration for our state. The current forecast is predicting a direct hit to Long Island by Hurricane Henri in hours. Stop clowning around & do something!”

Professor Tom Nichols tweeted, “I had no compunction about pointing out that Gov. Noem parading through a superspreader event during a national crisis was a symbol of an unserious nation. What Chuck Schumer did today was worse. He’s the Senate Majority Leader. An even greater symbol of utter unseriousness.”

Republican Candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania, Sean parnell, wrote, “10,000 plus Americans are stranded in Afghanistan, surrounded by the enemy & desperate for help & this is what Senate Majority Leader @chuckschumer is doing. Dancing in the street with celebrities. Just so tone deaf & embarrassing for our nation.”

Americans get beaten by Taliban

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin briefed members of the Congress that Americans in Afghanistan have been beaten by the Taliban. “The Taliban are roaming the streets, beating Americans, beating Afghans and beating our allies and that’s who we’re negotiating with to get our people out and putting our faith in — it’s insane,” one member of the House told the New York Post.

“There remains a massive gap between the message that President Biden shared with the American people and the reality on the ground. He says Americans are not having trouble accessing the airport, while the media is reporting of the Taliban roaming the streets beating Americans and our allies,” Representative Anthony Gonzalez from Ohio told NYP.

Taliban takes over Afghanistan

After a month-long offensive against the Afghan army, the Islamist outfit Taliban finally reached the gates of Kabul on Sunday (August 15). They entered Afghanistan’s presidential palace hours after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Since then surreal scenes have emerged as people try to flee the country to save their lives. Visuals of Afghan people falling from the sky as they tried to escape while hanging on to the wheels of the airplanes have gone viral on social media. The Talibs have been seen enjoying themselves as the amusement park as well among other surreal scenes.

While the Taliban has promised to preserve women’s rights and grant amnesty to everyone who had run afoul with the terror outfit, the situation on the ground tells a different story. There have been reports emerging from Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan that say the Taliban terrorists have been hunting down their adversaries and exacting revenge from those whom they perceive to have helped the United States and NATO forces. This has added to the panic among the people, who are now either going underground or rushing towards the airport to escape the country.

Tension in Muzaffarpur after Muharram and Suwariya mela at the same place, locals clash with police after pigs meant for sacrifice snatched by cops

OpIndia Staff
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Tension in Muzaffarpur after Muharram and Suwariya mela at the same place, locals clash with police after pigs meant for sacrifice snatched by cops

A major controversy erupted in Ramlila Gachi Bazar in Deoria in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar on Friday (August 20) over holding the Tazia procession as part of the Muharram celebration and celebrations of Suwariya mela wherein pigs are slaughtered as part of Hindu ritual on the last Friday of the month of Sawan. Incidentally, both the festivals fell on the same day.

According to reports, during the celebrations, police had arrived at the spot to stop the animal sacrifice at the Hindu festival. But the enraged Hindus used sticks and bamboos to attack police officers who arrived at the fair to stop them from sacrificing animals. The police too, retaliated by raining lathis at the crowd. Both, locals and the police personnel sustained injuries in the brawl.

While five police officers were reportedly hurt in the incident, including the SHO of Deoria, more than a dozen villagers were also hurt in the attack. Hundreds of locals who had gathered to celebrate the festival on Friday accused the police of taking unilateral action against the villagers.

According to reports, the people belonging to the Muslim community held a Tazia procession on the night of August 18 (Wednesday). Following this, the people of the Hindu community began constructing a pandal in the area to conduct the Suwariya mela. Reportedly, there was a lot of angst amongst some Muslim villagers regarding this. Fearing that the situation might deteriorate, Paru’s CO and SHO held a meeting with some locals and debarred the Hindus from holding the festival, to which they took strong objection.

Locals said that the police snatched the pigs from the hands of the Hindus who were carrying the animals to slaughter them as part of their ritual. This enraged the Hindu villagers, who then attacked the police with rods and sticks. The irate villagers started pelting stones at the police in an attempt to drive them away, in which, 5 police personnel including SHO Sanjay Swarup, Paru inspector Digambar Prasad reportedly sustained injuries.

The police too, resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the villagers, in which a dozen villagers were injured. According to the locals, four rounds of aerial firing was also done by the police to control the crowd. However, the police are denying all these allegations.

Speaking to ANI, Anil Kumar, the sub-divisional magistrate of Muzzafarpur said: On the last day of the month of Sawan, people offer prayers and sacrifice animals. In a meeting, it was decided that there would be a ban on animal sacrifice this year. In violation of the mutual agreement, some people were adamant about sacrificing animals and started pelting stones at policemen in which a dozen of policemen were injured. The situation is now under control and the miscreants are being identified”.

Meanwhile, there is significant tension in the area following the incident. A large contingent of police has been deployed to keep the situation under control.

Bullet train to connect Ayodhya, Varanasi to New Delhi, part of effort to put city of Shri Ram on international tourist map: Details

OpIndia Staff
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Bullet train to connect Ayodhya, Varanasi to New Delhi, part of effort to put city of Shri Ram on international tourist map: Details

Several projects are in the pipeline to put Ayodhya on the international tourist map. As per reports, National High-Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRC) has applied for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Airport Authority of India to start the Bullet Train project connecting Ayodhya to New Delhi. As per the plan, the high-speed Bullet Train will connect New Delhi to three major pilgrimage cities in Uttar Pradesh that are Varanasi, Prayagraj and Ayodhya.

Earlier, a detailed plan of 941.5 KM track was tabled to connect Delhi and Varanasi via Agra-Lucknow-Prayagraj. Now Ayodhya has been added to the circuit with a separate link track of 130 KM between Lucknow and Ayodhya. The Bullet Train connecting Delhi to Ayodhya will cover a distance of over 670 KM with speed ranging between 320 KM/Hour to 350 KM/Hour. It will cut down travel time between Delhi and Ayodhya to three hours.

To initiate the project, several meetings were held between NHSRC and district officials to finalize the land for the station. The state government has allotted the land for the station to NHSRC, and it will be built near the Maryada Purushottam Shree Ramchandra Airport that is being constructed near the Lucknow-Gorakhpur highway bypass. The work for the project will be commenced as soon as NOC is received from AAI.

Times of India quoted Anoop Kumar Agarwal, Executive director of National High-Speed Rail Corporation, saying, “there is a plan to directly connect city of Lord Ram with the national capital”. An aerial survey has been done and the plan has also been approved by the Centre. “National High-Speed Rail Corporation will begin work as soon as we receive a no-objection certificate from the AAI. It will take seven years for completion of the project.”

On this particular route, two pairs of Bullet Trains will run. The first will connect New Delhi to Ayodhya, and the second would connect New Delhi to Varanasi. The government will spend around 200 lakh crore on the project.

Maryada Purushottam Shri Ram International Airport

Apart from Bullet Train, an international airport is also coming up in the city, and the authorities are working on the project at a fast pace. 75-acres of land was acquired for the project from eight villages, including Januar, Ganja, Pura Hussain Khan, Dharampur Sahadat, Nandpur, Kushmaha, Firozpur and Sarethi in the district. Reports suggest that the displaced farmers have got a plot, a house under the PM Housing scheme and monetary compensation for the land they sold to the government for the project.

Multiple projects in Ayodhya to make it a tourist hub

Ayodhya has faced discrimination in terms of development projects from the previous governments. Since BJP formed the government in the state, several projects have been announced for the districts. After Supreme Court passed the judgement in favour of Ram Lalla Virajmaan, countless projects have been announced for the district to fast-track the development in the area.

In July 2021, CM Yogi Adityanath announced that the city is to be developed as a religious, Vedic and solar-powered sustainable city. Ayodhya has a historical, cultural and spiritual foundation and the Central and State government want to develop it as a global tourist destination while being a sustainable city.

CM Yogi had said, “Heritage lighting should be done in the city. The panch Kosi, chaudah Kosi and chaurasi Kosi parikrama pathways should be developed keeping their religious significance in mind.” He added that the work for the conservation of water bodies, intelligent traffic management system, animal protection, outer ring road and other road projects, solar projects, tree plantation and new employment opportunities are to be initiated on priority.

Later on August 5, the first anniversary of Bhumi Pujan of Bhavya Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, he had announced that 17 projects worth Rs.138 crore had already been completed, and 54 projects worth Rs.3136 crore are under development.

150 Indian nationals feared ‘kidnapped’ by Taliban in Kabul evacuated and return safely to India

OpIndia Staff
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150 Indian nationals feared ‘kidnapped’ by Taliban in Kabul evacuated and return safely to India

A day after it was reported that around 150 Indians were allegedly kidnapped by the Taliban from outside the Hamid Karzai International airport in Kabul, the stranded individuals were successfully rescued by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Sunday (August 22).

The development was confirmed on Twitter by News18 journalist Aditya Raj Kaul. In a tweet, he informed that an IAF C-17 aircraft, carrying 150 Indian nationals and 23 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, took off from Kabul at 5:30 am in morning. “Good news. Over 150 Indian nationals & 23 Afghan Sikhs/Hindus have taken off from Kabul at 5:30 am in an Indian Air Force C-17 aircraft & will be landing in India soon. This is the same group which was yesterday stopped and harassed by a Taliban group aircraft,” he said.

Here are the visuals of the IAF aircraft landing at Hindon Air Base.

Rishikesh Kumar of Sputnik reported yesterday that those abducted included a number of Afghan Sikhs and citizens but most of them were ordinary Indians. The people, including women and children, had reached the airport at 1 AM but could not enter. Kumar reported that soon after, Talibs came and thrashed some of them and took them all to Tarkhil, Kabul. Some managed to escape from the moving car, reported Kumar. According to those who had escaped, the Talibs told them that they were being taken inside the airport through another gate but it is not clear if they were indeed taken in or transferred to another location.

Two Afghan MPs, Narender Singh Khalsa and Dr Anarkali Kaur Honaryar amongst the 23 Sikhs rescued from Kabul

More than 20 Afghan Sikhs, including Afghanistan Member of Parliament Narender Singh Khalsa, were rescued from the Taliban in Kabul by the Indian Air Force on Saturday (August 21). Along with him, Dr Anarkali Kaur Honaryar, first Sikh woman MP of Afghanistan, was also rescued.

According to the reports, the Indian Air Force C-17 aircraft took off from Kabul with another 168 people, including 107 Indians and some 20 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus for Hindon IAF base in Ghaziabad.

Afghanistan lawmaker Narender Singh Khalsa is among the 23 Afghan Sikhs who were rescued by the Indian government on Saturday. Speaking to the media, Afghan MP Narender Singh Khalsa thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian Government, and the Indian Air Force for rescuing him and the Afghan Sikh minority community from the Taliban.

Other than the previous evacuation missions, three flights with as many as 390 Indians, Afghans and other nationals will land in India this morning. 168 people are evacuated from Kabul, 135 from Doha (brought by NATO forces from Afghanistan) and 87 from Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan.

Talibanis set an Afghan woman on fire for ‘bad cooking’, alleges activist

OpIndia Staff
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Talibanis set an Afghan woman on fire for ‘bad cooking’, alleges activist

An Afghan woman was reportedly set on fire by Talibanis for “bad cooking”, and many others are being forced into sex slavery.

Speaking to Sky News, Najla Ayoubi, a former Afghan judge and activist, revealed that the Talibanis set ablaze a woman because they were not satisfied with a meal she prepared.

Sharing the horrific details of her experience in the capital, Ayoubi said she had to “flee” for her life after promoting women’s rights.

“They are forcing people to give them food and cook them food,” said Ayoubi, adding, “A woman was put on fire because she was accused of bad cooking for Taliban fighters.”

The former judge said she was forced to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country. She said that ever since the Taliban took over the country, she has received multiple reports of violence against women.

“There are so many young women in the past few weeks being shipped into neighbouring countries in coffins to be used as sex slaves. They also force families to marry their young daughters to Taliban fighters. I don‘t see where is the promise that they think women should be going to work when we see all of these atrocities,” she told Sky News.

Ayoubi added that many rights activists in Afghanistan are “in hiding”, fearing retaliation from the Taliban.

Door-to-door hunt for girls as young as 12, Taliban looking for sex slaves

Earlier, there were reports that the Taliban gangs are targeting children as young as 12 during their hunt for sex slaves since they took over Afghanistan. Women and girls are among the most at-risk Afghanis under the new Islamist regime after the Jihadist organisation launched a door-to-door search for sex slaves.

From demanding lists of women and girls in different regions to forcing marriages on young girls, reports of the Taliban’s atrocities are making headlines. The unmarried and widowed women and girls between the ages of 12 to 45 are termed as “qhanimat” or spoils of the war by the Taliban. They are reportedly being divided among the members of the group.

According to Shukria Barakzai, Afghan politician and journalist, the stories of the Taliban’s atrocities against women and girls are horrifying. She wrote in The Daily Mail, “The gouging of a woman’s eyes in front of her terrified family; girls as young as 12 wrenched from the arms of their weeping mothers to become sex slaves for Taliban ‘warriors’; men punished or even killed for ‘offences’ as simple as listening to the ‘wrong’ music, or for daring to be ‘educated’.”

She further said that in some villages, Taliban members conducted door-to-door searches looking for young girls to forcibly marrying them and pushing them into a life of sex slaves. She added, “So determined are they that no virgin will escape their clutches that they check drawers, wardrobes and even suitcases in homes where desperate mothers deny they have young daughters to ensure they are telling the truth.”

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