The whole world will be impacted over the United States’ decision to withdraw its troops from war-torn Afghanistan after 20 years, said the National Vice President of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former MP Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda on Monday.
Speaking about India’s arch rival Pakistan’s role in the Afghan turmoil, Panda said, “Pakistan has been nurturing terrorists to destabilise Afghanistan and reduce their dependence on India. When the US Army withdrew their troops, the Taliban and Pakistan succeeded in their sinister motives.”
This will have its impact on the whole world. However, we have prepared ourselves from the beginning to meet any eventuality arising out of the Afghanistan crisis, said Panda on the apprehensions over the Taliban’s approach towrds India.
Asked about the minority Hindus and Sikhs stranded in Afghanistan, Panda said that this is a matter of humanitarian principles to rescue all the people.
"As far as the threat to our country is concerned, the Indian Army, Air Force and the Navy are in readiness to deal with the smallest of treat emanating from anywhere around the globe," he asserted.
Earlier, Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and V Muraleedharan received at least three copies of Sikh Holy scripture Shree Guru Granth Sahib and 44 Afghan Sikhs who were flown into India from Kabul in a special Air India flight via Dushanbe in Tajikistan last week.
The US has evacuated and facilitated the shifting of approximately 111,900 people from the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul since August 14, the White House has stated.
The US evacuated approximately 6,800 people between August 27 at 3:00 AM EDT and August 28 at 3:00 AM EDT, following the deadly suicide attack near the Kabul airport on Thursday, it said.
Following the unprecedented attack, the US evacuated 4,000 persons in 32 US military flights in 27 C-17s and 5 C-130s. 34 coalition flights also carried 2,800 people out of the Afghanistan soil.