india

Updated: Jan 15, 2019 19:58 IST

A woman from Rajasthan was among four people killed on Tuesday in a terror attack in Kabul claimed by the Taliban, raising fresh questions about the safety of hundreds of Indian nationals working on development projects across war-torn Afghanistan.

The development comes at a time when uncertainty continues to surround the fate of seven Indian engineers kidnapped by armed men in northern Baghlan province of Afghanistan in May last year.

The Indian woman, whose identity was not disclosed by authorities, died when the walls of her home collapsed because of the impact of a powerful truck bomb attack near the Green Village compound, home to several international companies and charities and guest houses, in eastern Kabul on Monday.

The woman was working for an NGO affiliated to the Afghan government, people familiar with development said. The Indian embassy in Kabul is taking steps to send her body to India.

New Delhi strongly condemned the “horrific terror attack in Kabul…in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives”, said a statement by the external affairs ministry. “India calls for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously,” it added.

The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack that also killed three Afghan security guards and injured 113 others. Some German policemen were among the injured, the country’s foreign ministry said in a tweet.

The militants pledged to carry out more attacks in Kabul in response to the recent appointment of anti-Taliban veteran Amrullah Saleh as interior minister. The latest attack came against the backdrop of frantic efforts by the US to begin peace talks with Taliban militants who, India and Afghanistan say, are backed by Pakistan.

The people cited above said little was known about the fate of the seven Indian engineers kidnapped last May while working for KEC International, an infrastructure company that bagged a Rs 226-crore contract as a sub-contractor of state-owned Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), which operates power stations.

The engineers were travelling through a largely Taliban-controlled region at the time of their abduction though there was no claim of responsibility by the militants. However, Afghan officials had blamed the Taliban.

Close to 200 Indian engineers and technical experts are working on major infrastructure projects across Afghanistan that are backed or funded by the Indian government, and experts said the number of Indians working on projects operated by NGOs and international organisations runs into hundreds.

Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, said no government could protect all its citizens in a conflict zone such as Afghanistan.

“By and large, Indians working for government-linked projects live in protected compounds and are guarded by Indian and Afghan security forces. But such risks are a given, and Indians will have to live with it, especially in a place where they are specifically targeted by a group that is a proxy of Pakistan,” he said.