Kolkata: When Air India Flight AI-244 departed from Hamid Karzai Airport Kabul for Delhi on Sunday, it was a real experience for Sohini Sarkar, a Kolkatan who now lives in the US and works with an NGO in Afghanistan.
Sarkar managed to reach the airport when the Taliban militia began to enter Kabul and was lucky to board India’s last air flights that took off at night and landed in Delhi at around 9pm on Sunday.
“It rushed horribly against time,” Sarkar told Toi after reaching a friend in Delhi.
“On Saturday night, there was a power outage and a massive power outage.
I live close to the airport where US troops are placed and thought it was a safe place.
But on Sunday everything changed.
We got urgent reminders from the US Embassy to burn All sensitive documents are related to staff and beneficiaries and go as soon as possible.
It was a terrible situation.
Some of my colleagues went to the bank to withdraw money but the banks had fallen.
We sent the Afghanistan Nationals home from the office even when part of us panicked Trying to destroy all documents.
It’s only a matter of hours, “tells Sarkar.
“It usually takes 15-20 minutes to reach the airport from where I live in Kabul but on Sunday stretches full of thousands of cars and it takes more than an hour.
Fortunately, there is no attack or checkpoint,” said Sarkar.
Sarkar is now worried about the fate of his colleagues and their families, some of which have become targeted and threatened to work with American organizations.