All five Afghanistan evacuees from Mangaluru return home safely

They were airlifted by NATO forces and were earlier in military base

All five persons from Mangaluru region who had been evacuated from Afghanistan and had landed in Delhi on Sunday arrived here on Monday.

Of them, Anand Prasad from near Ullal arrived at Mangaluru International Airport in the morning. The remaining four – Dinesh Rai from Bajpe, Jagadish Poojary from Moodbidri, Desmond Davis D’Souza from Pakshikere, near Kinnigoli, and Shravan Anchan from Urwa in Mangaluru city – arrived together at the airport late in the evening.

The evacuees said that they had been airlifted by the NATO forces from Kabul to Qatar from where they flew to Delhi with the help of Indian Embassy officials.

Inside military base

They said that they could not see Taliban militants or the happenings in Afghanistan as they worked inside the military base in Kabul and were not going out.

Mr. Prasad, 39, who worked as an accountant at Kabul, told reporters at his house in Kaneer Thota, Kolya, near Ullal, that he had spent three days in Qatar before flying to Delhi. He worked for Overseas Supply Services Ltd. inside the NATO military base. The Ullal resident said that as the flight movements had been blocked in Kabul for three days there was difficulty in the evacuation efforts.

His wife Bhavila said that she and other family members were tense after seeing the visuals of Afghanistan incidents on the television channels. “We were praying for the safe return of my husband and are happy now,” she said.

For 10 years

Mr. Poojary said that he was working in Kabul since the last 10 years as a bus coach driver in the military base. He had arrived from Afghanistan to Moodbidri on leave this July and had returned to Kabul on August 11. He had been airlifted from Kabul to Qatar on August 17 after the situation worsened.

Mr. D’Souza too was working in Afghanistan for 10 years as an administrator in the military camp under the U.S. His wife and daughter are in Pakshikere. Mr. Poojary said that if normalcy returns he is ready to return to Afghanistan to take up the same job.

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