Indian ITBP contingent, commandos return from Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: A contingent of India’s Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has returned from Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country.According to Kashmir Media Service (KMS), the contingent of 99 ITBP commandos along with three sniffer dogs landed at the Indian Air Force’s Hindan base located near Loni Ghaziabad in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, officials said.

The commandos will now undergo a week-long COVID-19 quarantine at an Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) facility in Delhi, they said. “With this, our complete contingent deployed for securing the Embassy in Kabul, its four consulates in Afghanistan and diplomats have returned. The commandos came along with the Embassy staffers and other Indian nationals,” ITBP spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey said. The ITBP had deployed over 300 commandos for security duties in Afghanistan.

The force was first deployed to secure the premises of the Kabul Embassy, diplomats and staffers in November, 2002. It later sent its additional detachments to similarly guard Indian consulates located in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat.