Expressing concern over recent attacks on places of worship of minority community in Afghanistan, including Sikhs, India has termed it as “hugely alarming” and warned about “significant increase” in presence of the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIL-K) in the country.

Sounding this note of caution in a session of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC),  India also flagged linkages between proscribed outfits such as Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed and provocative statements by other terror groups pose a direct threat to the region's peace and stability.

“As we have repeatedly stated at the Security Council, India has direct stakes in ensuring the return of peace and stability, given our position as a contiguous neighbour and long-standing partner of Afghanistan, as well as our strong historical and civilisational linkages to the Afghan people,” India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj said.

Speaking at the UNSC briefing on Afghanistan late Monday requested by Russia under the Chinese presidency of the Council, Kamboj underlined that on terrorism, the recent findings of the 1988 Sanctions Committee's Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Report indicate that current authorities in Afghanistan need to take much stronger action to fulfill their anti-terrorism commitments. “There is a significant increase ina presence of ISIL-K in country and their capacity to carry out attacks. ISIL-K, with its base reportedly in Afghanistan, continues to issue threats of terrorist attacks on other countries,” she said.

Kamboj told the Council that the series of attacks at religious places of the minority community, including the recent attack at the Sikh Gurudwara on June 18 in Kabul followed by another bomb explosionnear the same Gurudwara on 27 July, is “hugely alarming.”

Kamboj stressed the need to see concrete progress in ensuring that “such proscribed terrorists, entities, or their aliases do not get any support, tacit or direct, either from Afghan soil or from the terror sanctuaries based in the region.”

On the political front, she said India continues to call for aninclusive dispensation in Afghanistan which represents all sections of Afghan society.

A broad-based, inclusive, and representative formation is necessary for both domestic and international engagement, she said as she expressed New Delhi's concern at developments in Afghanistan which directly impact the well-being of women and girls.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told Council that Afghanistan is not just a humanitarian crisis but “an economic crisis.

It's a climate crisis. It's a hunger crisis. It's a financial crisis. But it is not a hopeless crisis.” He noted that humanitarian organisations have done their utmost to provide population in Afghanistan with a lifeline.  Kamboj told Council that in response to humanitarian needs of Afghan people as well as to urgent appeals made by United Nations, India has dispatched several shipments of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

These include 32 tons of medical assistance in ten batches, which includes essential life-saving medicines, anti-TB medicines and 500,000 doses of the COVID vaccine. 

These medical consignments have been handed over to the World Health Organisation(WHO) and the Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul.  India has also dispatched over 40,000 MTs of wheat to Afghanistan so far.

Also, in order to closely monitor and coordinate the efforts of various stakeholders for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance and in continuation of India's engagement with the Afghan people, an Indian technical team has also been deployed at our Embassy

in Kabul, she said. 

Rahul Datta