 "ITBP personnel guarding Indian embassy to stay in Kabul: Officials")
Amidst the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel deployed for the security of the Indian embassy in Kabul, will continue to stay there to guard the remaining staff.
The Indian embassy in Kabul has been functioning with reduced staff strength.
"The ITBP personnel deployed for the security of the Indian embassy in Kabul to stay there as some of the embassy officials are still there and they will return along with them", the officials said.
The situation has aggravated in the war-torn country in the wake of its President Ashraf Ghani and his colleagues leaving Afghanistan on Sunday and reportedly taking temporary asylum in a nearby country.
The ITBP officials said that an adequate number of the force's troopers, trained in proximate security, have been there in Kabul to provide security to the embassy personnel.
However, they refrained from mentioning the exact number of the ITBP troopers in Kabul, citing security reasons.
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The Taliban have taken over control of almost all parts of the country in less than three weeks before the US troops complete their final withdrawal.
The Indian government has already evacuated the majority of its officials from there, anticipating the Taliban advance into Kabul and also advised all Indian citizens to leave the country at the earliest.
The families of the diplomats and embassy personnel have been evacuated since last week and the Indian consulates were closed a fortnight ago.
"The government is closely monitoring the rapidly evolving situation in Afghanistan and will decide on the evacuation of diplomatic personnel from Kabul. Specific plans for all contingencies are already in place and all steps will be taken to ensure that the staff of the Indian embassy in Kabul and Indian nationals are not at any risk", a source in the Government said.
The highly trained ITBP personnel were deployed in 2008 after a terror attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Around 300 personnel were stationed at the embassy and its four consulates in Jalalabad, Mazar-e- Sharif, Kandahar and Herat in a phased manner.
In 2018, the Himalayan border guarding force sent 35 specialized commandos to strengthen the existing manpower of the force at the Indian Embassy and its four consulates after analyzing the threat perception and intelligence inputs.
These men are given special training in VIP protection, combat tactics and weapons firing before they are sent for this special task in Afghanistan.
--IANS
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