No Going Back: Afghan Sikhs Take Tentative Steps Towards Rebuilding

Hope Mingles With Fear As 14-Day Quarantine At ITBP Centre Is Completed

- Sidhartha Roy & Ambika Pandit

New Delhi: Growing up in Kabul, Kulwinder Singh is not unused to the sound of gunshots being fired. August 15, however, was a different day. “I was at my grocery shop. At around 9.30 am, there were sounds of gunshots being fired. No one was sure what was happening, but soon enough there was panic and chaos in the market,” said the 40-year-old. The Taliban had swept into Afghanistan’s capital.

“I closed my shop and shifted my family to a gurdwara near our home for safety,” said Singh, sitting with his wife, Kuljeet Kaur, in a room adjacent to Guru Arjan Dev Ji Gurdwara in New Mahavir Nagar in west Delhi. The Singh couple and their four children were among the 78 Afghan evacuees who were airlifted from Afghanistan on August 24 and put in Covid quarantine at the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Centre at Chhawla. They were released from the quarantine centre on Tuesday.

“The situation in Afghanistan is very tense. We left our homes and shops there and almost fled our country in whatever we were wearing,” said Himmat Singh, 45, of Ghazni with folded palms. “Thankfully, we managed to bring Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji with us and we are thankful to the Indian government for helping us.”