LIVE UPDATES ON THE AFGHANISTAN-TALIBAN CRISIS: A special Air Force flight carrying 168 Afghans lands at Hindon Air Base in Delhi

The Indian Air Force’s special repatriation flight from Kabul landed this morning at the Hindon air station near Delhi, carrying 168 passengers, including 107 Indians. Among the evacuees were two Afghan senators and 24 Afghan sikhs.

They will thereafter be transferred to the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara. Many of the evacuees have been staying in a Gurdwara in Kabul for many days.

Three more flights carrying Indians evacuated from Kabul, Air India, IndiGo, and Vistara, arrived in Delhi this morning from Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe and Qatar’s Doha.

Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson for the External Affairs Ministry, had earlier shared updates of the evacuation attempts in a series of tweets. He also included a short video clip of the evacuees singing “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.”

According to sources, the administration is attempting to gather as many Indians as possible into Kabul’s airport on Saturday morning in order to keep them safe till the evacuation issues are worked out.

The Indian embassy personnel has been evacuated, but an estimated 1,000 people remain in numerous Afghan cities, and determining their position and condition is proving difficult, according to the Home Ministry.

After President Ashraf Ghani left, the Taliban grabbed control of Afghanistan on Sunday, marching into Kabul with minimal resistance. After a shockingly quick rout of major cities and two decades of conflict that lost hundreds of thousands of lives, this came as a shock.