Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 25: India has cancelled all previously issued visas to Afghan nationals who are presently not in the country making fresh e-visa compulsory for travelling to India following reports of ransacking of an office in Kabul dealing in Indian visas by “several unidentified Urdu speaking persons.”
The Afghanistan security forces had alerted India that the ransacking of the office dealing in distribution of Indian visas on behalf of the Indian mission soon after the Taliban took control of Kabul in a swift run-over the country on August 15. The “Urdu-speaking persons” had decamped with a large number of Afghan passports stamped with Indian visas.
“Several unidentified Urdu speaking persons forced their way into an office in Kabul dealing with Indian visas for distribution on behalf of the Indian Missions in Afghanistan and seized un-estimated numbers of Afghan passports with stamped Indian visas,” official sources said.
In a notice issued by the union home ministry on Wednesday, the union government said the Afghan nationals can travel to India only on an electronic visa (e-Visa). Sources said the decision has been taken based on reports that several of those issued physical visas before the Indian Mission closed down in the country have misplaced their passports.
“Owing to the prevailing security situation in Afghanistan and streamlining of the visa process by introduction of the e-Emergency X-Misc visa, it has been decided that all Afghan nationals henceforth must travel to India only on e-Visa,” a statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Wednesday.
“Keeping in view some reports that certain passports of Afghan nationals have been misplaced, previously issued visas to all Afghan nationals, who are presently not in India, stand invalidated with immediate effect. The Ministry said after streamlining of the visa process with the introduction of “e-Emergency X-Misc visa,” it had been decided that from now on all Afghan nationals must travel to India only on e-visa. Afghan nationals wishing to travel to India may apply for e-Visa, it added.
Earlier, the e-Visa facility was not available to Afghans and Afghanistan also came under the Prior Reference Category (PRC) of countries for grant of visa, which means Afghan nationals have to be cleared by MHA for any visit. Others in this category include nationals of Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, foreigners of Pakistani origin and stateless persons. The MHA had earlier said that the new category had been introduced considering security concerns. Initially, a six-month visa is being granted under this category.
Sources said those who have misplaced their passports need to apply for a new passport in Kabul or elsewhere and then apply for an e-Visa. Those who were holding an Indian visa but could not travel to India will also have to re-apply for an e-Visa.
The statement comes a day after the Taliban announced that they would give no further extension to the deadline of August 31 for American forces to leave Kabul even as they urged the US not to evacuate Afghans. The Kabul airport is currently secured by American forces.
Assuring Afghan nationals of security and announcing there would be no reprisals for having worked with American forces or any other foreign force, the Taliban said on Wednesday they would not allow Afghans to cross pickets in Kabul to reach the airport. Taliban also suggested that a large number of Afghans were fleeing not so much out of a sense of insecurity as seeing this as an economic opportunity in the West.
The Indian immigration agencies have gone into high alert after the August 15 incident in Kabul of decamping with Afghan passports with Indian visas as it is feared that Indian visas will be used to forge fake passports. This is why the Indian government has invalidated all the visas and made e-visa mandatory.
According to official sources, the Indian immigration agencies have been alerted to the seizure of Afghan passports with Indian visas as there is serious concern that these documents could be used to forge fake passports for terrorists in future. While it is not clear which group could be involved in this attack on the Indian visa outsourcing agency in Kabul, the needle of suspicion points towards Pakistan as the intruders were Urdu speaking. “There is a strong possibility that the Afghan passports with Indian visas could be used to forge passports for terrorists by changing the photograph on the travel document,” said a source from Kabul. The Indian security agencies are tight-lipped about the incident.
According to Kabul watchers, a week after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, a number of shadowy groups are now seen to be operating in the capital city of Afghanistan with large scale searches being carried out. It is learnt that these groups are seizing passports and other travel documents in searches of travel agencies and their owners in Kabul.
The Indian Home Ministry was already on alert when the evacuation exercise was started by the Ministry of External Affairs and National Security teams on August 16 with each passenger screened for his past and travel documents. The Indian mission in Kabul, on its part, is searching its data to dig out names of those Afghans who were given the Indian visas and to the outsourcing agency for distribution. The data is being searched and names are being identified so that those Indian visas could be cancelled.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s self-proclaimed acting president Amrullah Saleh has said Pakistan was not just a sanctuary or safe haven for the Taliban in all these years, but “the entire country was at the service of the Taliban who used the neighbouring country as their support base and the United States kept on paying money to Pakistan.”
He said more the US paid, more Pakistanis became benevolent to the Taliban, Amrullah said in an exclusive interview to a television channel on Wednesday when he was asked why the Afghan army crumbled so easily in front of the Taliban offensive.
Pakistan is internationally criticised for having provided sanctuaries to the Taliban in all these years. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has always remained a staunch supporter of a government in Afghanistan that has Taliban participation. In a recent interview, before the fall of Kabul, Imran Khan said the Taliban are not a military outfit that the Pakistan army can hunt them down. Saleh in his interview claimed that there were “not a few pockets or sanctuaries in Pakistan” for the Taliban as the entire country was serving the Taliban.
The deposed former vice president, who is now one of the faces of the Panjshir Resistance, the anti-Taliban force of the country along with Ahmad Massoud, said the US threatened the former Afghanistan government to release the prisoners, who have now ended up being the Taliban frontliners. “We said are you sure that these people will not end up at the frontlines? Their answer was no but they all ended up at the frontlines. So it was not prisoners’ release but gifting Taliban a division of highly radicalised fighters,” Saleh said. This holds true for Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was released in 2018 after the United State brokered for his release.
What Amrullah Saleh implied is that while Afghanistan was under the pressure from the US, the Taliban increased strength making Pakistan their base and receiving indirect help from the US. As the anti-Taliban force of Afghanistan is confident to put up a fight against the Taliban, Saleh has recently said that he would not leave Afghanistan and nobody except God can evacuate his soul from the country’s soil. “I own Afghanistan & it owns me. We are one. It speaks to me every day,” he tweeted.
Amid global criticism of Pakistan’s no-secret help to the Taliban, Pakistan ruling party leader Neelam Irshad Sheikh has said on Tuesday that the Taliban were with Pakistan to help “liberating Kashmir.”