A 13-year-old Afghan Sikh girl, who lost her father in the March suicide attack on a Kabul gurudwara, has been allegedly kidnapped, said the Afghan Sikh Hindu Welfare Society (ASHWS).
Talking to Indian media outlet, the Times of India (ToI) on Saturday, Khajinder Singh, president of the ASHWS, said that the girl was taken from Gurudwara Baba Sri Chand in the Shor Bazzar area of Kabul, where she lived with her blind mother and young brother, on late Friday evening.
The child’s father, Surjan Singh, had been killed when a suicide bomber and gunmen stormed the nearby Gurudwara Har Rai Sahib on March 25. The attack had killed 27 people.
“We have taken up the issue with Afghanistan’s Sikh member of parliament Narinder Singh and appealed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the kidnapping of the minor Sikh girl with the Afghanistan government through diplomatic channels and ensure her early and safe release,” the president of the welfare society told ToI.
The minority Afghan Sikh community has expressed concern about their safety and urged the Indian government for help. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, families whose visas had been approved were stuck in the country. They had sent written appeals to the Indian embassy.
The Afghan Sikh Hindu Welfare Society also urged the Modi government to issue visas to Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan who wanted to migrate to India.
This comes a day after Nidan singh Sachdeva, who had been abducted in June in the Chamkani district of Paktia was released from captivity.
Meanwhile, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced that they would be facilitating the return of Afghan Hindu and Sikh community members facing threats in Afghanistan to India.
