Er P L Khushu
There is a proximal similarity between deadliest night of 19th January, 1990, when Kashmiri Pandits were hounded, killed, molested and then made to flee from their homes by Jehadi terrorists at the backing of Pakistan and the 15th August, 2021, when Talibanis entered Kabul and other strategically important cities of Afghanistan, which made the peace-loving people to escape from Afghanistan, to save their lives, respect and chastity at the hands of the brutal Talibanis, who are also monitored and lured by terror camps of Pakistan with a thumping support of Pakistani ISI.
As US military leaves Afghanistan, Taliban fighters took over parts of the country. The Taliban fought against Afghan government soldiers in the north, and many people were running away from violence. Taliban insurgents entered the Afghanistan capital Kabul on Sunday, as United States evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter. The people trying to escape fighting have been running to the capital city of Kabul, where they live in open green spaces known as parks, and on streets with little food or water. Thousands left their homes in the north and came to Kabul in last two weeks, as per the statement of a spokesman for Afghan Government. Michelle Bachelet the United Nations’ Human Rights Chief, said that close to 200 civilians were killed and over 1,000 were injured since only Monday during fights in cities of Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, Herat and Kunduz. In reality, she said, the numbers may be much higher. Bachelet said people told the UN, stories of civilians being lined up and killed, attacks against Afghan government officials and their families, homes and schools being destroyed and mines and explosive devices being placed at strategic locations to create panic and chaos. With exit of the American soldiers who worked to keep Afghanistan safe from the Taliban for 20 years, Bachelet said the UN is worried that the progress achieved in human rights will be lost now in Afghanistan with Taliban rule. A teenager, Nasir Ahmed, said he saw Taliban fighters hurting a man who had a photo of himself with the Afghan flag on his phone. He said he also saw fighters hurting women whose head coverings were not correct. He said he left his village because the fighting was too close. He is worried about his future. He said, “I missed the last year of school because of COVID-19 and this year because of war. I don’t see any future for myself.” One woman said that she has been in a park in the northern part of Kabul for three days. The Government offered no help. She has been getting food from other people. She left her village after some of men in her family were killed while fighting Taliban. Other men in her family were killed later because they were related to those fighting against Taliban. “The Taliban have no mercy,” she said. In one park in Kabul, there were 400 people living with only two toilets. There is no medical help and many people have health problems.
President Joe Biden’s decision to plow ahead with an incredibly precipitous withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan has precipitated the collapse of the American-allied government there. He ignored warnings from the US defense and intelligence officials, former military chiefs, diplomats, and independent observers, about plunging Afghanistan into an imminent catastrophe. USA took 4 Presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years to replace Taliban with other Taliban. Biden’s Afghanistan blunder will come back to haunt the US and its Allies. Whatever else might be the consequences of the US debacle, Biden has virtually thrown Afghans to the wolves.
The last US troops leaving Bagram base, in the darkness of the night at his orders, had set in motion a Taliban surge that went through Afghanistan like wildfire. The barbarians who were always at the gates pummeled through town after town, including the former bastions of resistance like Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat. Other provincial capitals fell like dominos. Taliban then captured its former stronghold and de facto capital of its brutal emirate, Kandahar. The jihadist terror group subsequently encircled and ensnared the federal capital Kabul, which is home to over 10 per cent of the country’s population and host to tens of thousands of Afghans internally displaced from the areas coming under the Taliban’s sway. Within days the triumphant Taliban walked into Kabul, forced the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee, occupied the presidential palace and unfurled its banner there.
Kabul’s has again fallen in the hands of Taliban for the second time during the last about 25 years. Their atrocities of previous rule between 1996 and 2001 have come back to haunt people of Afghanistan. The Taliban are reputed for their brutality and the followers of a harsh brand of the ‘Shariyat’, the Islamic mode of delivering justice, which they exhibited earlier in the five years they ruled until being toppled by invading U.S.-led forces in 2001.
As Taliban take charge, fear, uncertainty grip Afghan students – in both Kabul & Delhi. Students of Afghanistan are saying that they are living under a threat and are struggling for survival. “Our student visas are ready but the airport has shut down and we have no means to go anywhere,” they added. Taliban has taken over the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and has reportedly told local residents flocking it with hopes of escaping, to go back home. “Some Afghan students have received their visas. But due to the human crisis in the Kabul airport, we don’t have any way to get out of this chaos and uncertainty. We ask all those who wish to help us, especially SAU authorities, to focus their efforts on arranging a flight for us. If the request is made to SAARC officials, they may be able to implement it with the cooperation of the Indian foreign affairs ministry. We are going through a failed-state situation, anarchy, chaos and uncertainty in the capital,” they added. This uncertainty, however, isn’t confined to just those stuck in Kabul.
Afghan students already in Delhi and studying at the Delhi University have reached out to the university administration seeking help regarding Visa extension and jobs. “Our families are fighting death every single day. Although they are suffering, they don’t want us to suffer,” said a DU student, who did not want to be named, adding, “We want our visas extended to be able to get jobs and two square meals a day. We are not asking for much.” Afghan students at JNU have also reached out to their Indian counterparts asking for help from their university administration.
Similar is the position with Afghan women. They shall be now treated as per Islamic code of conduct for women, which specifically make, such a woman only a show piece to remain confined to the four walls of her house. Emblematic of just how many Afghan women had been able to accomplish in the past decade-and how much they risk losing-is their workforce participation, which went up more than 50 per cent since 2011. During the previous Taliban regime, between 1996 and 2001, women were not allowed to study and work. In less than a decade, after the situation in the country stabilized after the war, they were able to claim their right to a profession and education, making up, for instance, the majority of students of Herat University. In the past few days, several women working in banks have been threatened and sent home, and so have female university students. Images of women are being whitewashed in the streets of Kabul, and locals’ report of businesses such as beauty parlors being closed. Despite denials from the Taliban, some reports of girls and young women being kidnapped, raped, and forced to marry terrorists are starting to surface, bringing back the worst memories of the previous Taliban occupation, and suggesting that fighters on the ground might not be following Taliban official directives, says Peymana Assad, the first UK elected official of Afghan origin, who spoke with Quartz hours after being evacuated from Kabul. “What is happening in Afghanistan today is going to put this country 200 years back,” Mahbouba Seraj, the founder of the Afghan Women Network, a local women’s rights organization, said in a video.
Thus the situation of the peace loving people of Afghanistan and its culturally well grown people will start migrating from or will be forcibly asked to leave the country during Talbani rule. It will be a situation similar to that of Kashmiri Pundits which they faced in January-1990, when Jehadi terrorists poured in Kashmir and reigned in brutal terror in the name of Islamic Jehad killing scores of Kashmiri Pandits for no fault of theirs. The Kashmiri Pandit exodus occurred in the year 1990-91, when it was the dark period for the Kashmiri Pandits as they were forced out of the Valley under the threat of terror by the Islamic fundamentalists, when the terrorism coupled with extreme terror activities gave birth in the Kashmir valley. Consequently, 19 January 1990 came to be known by Kashmiri Hindus as ‘Exodus Day’, in memory of the Kashmiri Hindus who were either killed or forced out of Kashmir. The January month of each year after the 19th January-1990, haunts each and every Kashmiri Pandit, living in forced exile across the country of the horrors and woes of this month, when they were forced to flee from Kashmir due to the terror dragon of the Islamist fundamentalists on this day. The dark night of January 19, 1990, shivering with cold, is remembered by all of them, as it was the worst nightmare for the Kashmiri Pandits living in the valley. Screaming from loud speakers and crowded streets was a message for KP’s living in Kashmir, which said, Ralive, Tsaliv, Neti- Galiv. (It meant that either convert to Islam or leave Kashmir and in the alternative face death). Even after about 32 years, Kashmiri Pandits shiver remembering the night which forced them into exodus and a life of exile within their own country. Jehadi cum communal speeches from mosques were put on loud speakers meant for ‘Azan & Nimaz’, saying Yeti- Bani Pakistan, Bhatov Bhegeer the Bhatenen-San, meaning there in that the Kashmir will become a Pakistan without male Kashmiri Pandits, but including women folk of Kashmiri Pandits. A sizeable number of Kashmiri Pandits were killed, their houses burnt and looted. Many Kashmiri Hindu women were kidnapped, raped and murdered, during this period of exodus.
(The author is a Chartered Consultant Civil Engineer, passionately attached to his Motherland – Jammu & Kashmir).