New Delhi: Growing in Kabul, Kulwinder Singh is not so unused with a fired gunfire.
August 15, however, is a different day.
“I was in my second shop.
Around 9:30 a.m., a gunshot was fired.
No one was sure what happened, but soon there was panic and chaos on the market,” said the 40-year-old player.
The Taliban had swept the Afghan capital.
“I closed my shop and shifted my family to Gurdwara near our house for salvation,” said Singh, sitting with his wife, Kuljeet Kaur, in a room adjacent to the Arjan Dev Ji Gurdwara teacher in New Mahavir Nagar in West Delhi.
Singh’s partner and four of their children were among the 78 Afghan Evakary which was flown from Afghanistan on August 24 and was put into Covid quarantine at the Indo-Tibetan border police center in Chhawla.
They were released from the Quarantine Center on Tuesday.
“The situation in Afghanistan is very tense.
We left our house and store there and almost left our country in whatever we were wearing,” said Himmat Singh, 45, from Ghazni with the palm of folded.
“Fortunately, we managed to bring Sri Teacher Granth Sahib Ji with us and we thank the Indian government for helping us.” Himmat said that living in Afghanistan was never completely safe and the situation only deteriorated with the Taliban took control.
“I was kidnapped 30 years ago, along with several other people in my neighborhood.
Now the road is really quiet,” he said, admitted that he did not face the problem of reaching the airport despite the proliferation of armed Taliban fighters on the streets.
Himmat is used to sell medicinal and herbal plants and do not know what India experienced for the future.
“At the moment, I’m just grateful that my family has reached India safely.
I haven’t started thinking about the next step,” he said.
“What I know is nothing else,” he said.
Kailash Kailash was tired but hopeful more hope to build his life.
After losing his youngest son, only 21 years old, in a bomb blast in Kabul a few months ago, he is now worried for the two sons stranded in Afghanistan.
He argues in the hope that they will be able to reach India after international flights continue from Kabul.
As soon as they were allowed to leave the Karantina Center, Kaur and 43 Sikh and Hindu Afghanistan were brought by a new voluntary organization to Mahavir Nagar Gurdwara.
However, at night most families, including Kaur, have chosen to move with relatives in Delhi or in Punjab.
Before leaving for Ludhiana where two daughters who were married had lived, Kaur shared that he had brought his grandson, his son’s children were killed, to India.
“Now, even when I was safe, I was worried about two sons and my daughter-in-law who lived in Gurdwara in Kabul.
They didn’t sleep all night and survive on Langar served there,” Kaur said.
He claimed that he was evacuated with only two pairs of clothes and nothing else.
Manmeet Kaur, 35, said that it was never safe for women to venture on the streets of Kabul and he rarely stepped out of the house since last year.
“Our children’s education has been greatly affected for more than a year,” he added.
Vikramjit Singh Sahney, International President, the World Punjabi Organization, and Chairperson, Sun Foundation, said it had helped bring Afghan and Hindu families on three reasons flights last year.
Sahney also arranged reskilling of refugees.
“We want them to learn beauty and fitness, stitches, support services and tasks like an electrician,” he said.
Kanv Bhalla, Head of Rehabilitation, Sobti Foundation, illustrates how the body organizes rented accommodation and basic monthly financial support for the Afghans moved.
“Financial support is very helpful, but the need for hours creates livelihood options for them,” Bhalla said.
“In the past, most of them took part time work.
This time, we want to see if we can link it to a small business that supports yourself.”