Amid the Afghanistan crisis and India’s ongoing evacuation exercise following the Taliban takeover of the country, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Sunday cited the evacuations from Afghanistan to back the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The law allows citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims who reached India before 2015.
“Recent developments in our volatile neighbourhood and the way Sikhs & Hindus are going through a harrowing time are precisely why it was necessary to enact the Citizenship Amendment Act,” the Minister tweeted, quoting a media report on the evacuation of 168 people - which included 23 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus - from Kabul by the Indian Air Force. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has triggered an exodus, especially of foreigners, religious and sectarian minorities.
Over the past week, hundreds of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus have been lining up at the Kabul international airport, looking for a way out of Afghanistan.
Fearful of religious persecution, these minorities are pleading to the Governments of India, the US, and the European Union to be evacuated from the war-torn country at the earliest.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi also posted pictures of the evacuation efforts on Twitter. Bagchi posted details of the evacuation efforts by Air India and IndiGo flights. He also posted a short video clip where the evacuees can be seen chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, adding more evacuation flights will follow.
The crisis in Afghanistan has brought the controversial CAA again into discourse as it aims to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who arrived in India before the end of December 2014. The rules under the Act are yet to be notified. The CAA was passed in December 2019 and one of its provisions promises the grant of permanent citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan fleeing religious persecution. The Opposition parties and several groups have protested against the implementation of CAA. The detractors of CAA believe that the law, coupled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise is intended to target the minorities in India.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had earlier stated that it is committed to repatriating all Indians and Afghan Sikhs and Hindus. It has recently reviewed the visa provisions and created a new e-visa category for Afghan nationals -- mainly Hindus and Sikhs -- to apply online.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi early this week chaired a high-level meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security on the Afghan situation and directed officials to ensure the safe evacuation of all Indian citizens and also to provide refuge to Sikhs and Hindus wanting to come to India.