Hunted by the Taliban now ruling Afghanistan, several military officers of the previous Ashraf Ghani regime are sending out cries for help on WhatsApp from their hideouts to the Indian military officers who had been their batchmates while training in the Indian military academies. “We are in a quandary not knowing how to deal with these distress messages,” said an officer who had got one SOS from his batchmate at the Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai.
“Our military establishment will not like it if we take individual decisions on helping these hapless batchmates. It is very difficult to reach the top brass in the military who alone can decide on such a sensitive issue. Perhaps we could approach the ADC to the President, a military officer, to help find a solution,” said the officer on condition of anonymity.
The various training academies of the Indian military, including Army, Navy and Airforce allocate a certain number of seats to the cadets coming from friendly countries. These men and women return home after completing the training to take up commissions in their respective militaries. Afghanistan was one such ‘friendly’ nation sending its cadets to the Indian military academies for training. “We found them warm and friendly, besides being hardworking and intelligent,” recalled the officer, expressing anguish at the predicament of his batchmate now holed up somewhere in Mazar-i-Sharif. He shared the WhatsApp text on condition that the name of the Afghani officer and his actual location should not be revealed.
“Afghanistan government fell into the hands of Taliban and since I was a Special Operations Officer and working in Afghanistan Army, they are looking for me and other Army members, so please if you can help us in any way to leave Afghanistan, please please don’t waste time. I’m living in shelter and keeping myself hidden from Taliban, if Taliban find me they will kill me in front of my wife and my son,” wrote the Afghani officer.
“Afghanistan is hell for me and every day I feel dead around me, please ask our course mates, the lady officers and gents for help. I left my home and everything behind and took just a backpack with me and currently we are in hiding….” he said in his WhatsApp message to his OTA mate.
“There could be around 1,500 or 2,000 such Afghan officers trained in the various Indian military academies in the last few years, who are now in such a predicament. We really do not know what to do with these distress calls; for that matter, we do not know what India can do to help them in view of the tricky diplomatic relations with the new regime in Kabul,” said another Indian military officer.
But yes, India can do ‘something’ in this issue, helping its own strategic interests besides extending humanitarian help to these ‘soldiers under siege’. “The Indian agencies can provide some money and other essentials to these stranded men, and in turn get useful intelligence from them on what is going on there. These are Special Operation Officers, who are as good as our paratroopers and commandos, and are capable of working behind the enemy lines. Besides, the military mind is always loyal to the one who has trained him. And we had trained them in our academies,” said the officer.
He said several of his batchmates in Afghan military had managed to escape to the US when America withdrew its troops and Taliban took charge in Kabul on August 15. “But there are many still stuck in Afghanistan with death stalking them all the time,” he said.
Capt Sameer Azizzada is one such lucky Afghan military officer who has managed to find a new home at New Jersey, USA. “I managed to escape by dressing in a burqa and running from one safe house to another with my wife and one sister. With much difficulty, we got onto an American plane to reach Qatar and finally here. I am very worried for the rest of my family still stuck in Afghanistan,” he told me in a phone interview from his temporary camp at New Jersey even while preparing for an interview coming up at the local immigration office in a couple of hours Monday (November 15) morning.
“My brother was pulled out of a bus and shot in the head because he could not answer the Taliban soldiers who were looking for me,” said the worried Afghani officer, now getting ready for his new status of a refugee in America.
There could be several similar cases coming up before India’s Ministry of External Affairs seeking immigrant status as there are many Afghani cadets undergoing training in various Indian defence academies, besides men and women working in different military and civil establishments in the country. They cannot return home for fear of the Taliban retribution. With the possibility of a large-scale influx of Afghani people, India could soon find itself in a major humanitarian challenge.
(The author is a senior journalist. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.)
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