ITBP personnel at Kabul embassy finally brought back to India

New Delhi: Amidst the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) on Tuesday said all its security personnel deployed for guarding the Indian Embassy at Kabul have returned back to India along with the embassy officials.

As per reports, the ITBP troopers were staying there as Ambassador Rudrendra Tandon, along with some embassy staff, was there and the Indian Embassy in Kabul was functioning with reduced staff. However, after evaluating the critical situation in the war-torn country, the government decided to call them back.

Earlier it was decided that the troopers will be the last to leave Afghanistan, probably with the last batch of the mission staff to be evacuated safely to India.

The Kabul airport was closed on Monday evening but it was reopened for evacuation operations on Tuesday morning by the American agencies.

Officials in the security set-up said that for evacuating Indian officials and staffers from Afghanistan, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval spoke to his US counterpart Jake Sullivan as US troops are deployed at the airport.

The Indian government had already evacuated the majority of the officials from there, anticipating the Taliban advance into Kabul, and also advised all Indian citizens to leave the country at the earliest. The families of the diplomats and embassy personnel have been evacuated last week and the Indian consulates have already been closed a fortnight ago.