“I had to run, else the Taliban would have killed me. Everything ends here. I could not bring my family along,” Afghan intelligence officer Asif said in broken Hindi as tears welled up in his eyes, hours after he landed in Delhi. The 41-year-old officer took the last commercial flight from Kabul to Delhi on Sunday to escape “certain death”, leaving behind his ailing mother, wife and an eight-year-old son.
A compatriot helped Asif find a modest accommodation — a small room, attached bathroom and a marble slab with a sink that he called kitchen — in Lajpat Nagar for Rs 500 a day. “I will try if I can get a room for Rs 200-300, said the officer, who wanted to be identified as just Asif.
Asked if he had food, the officer of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the national intelligence and security service of Afghanistan, burst into tears. His hands trembled and lips quivered as he took out his passport, an NDS identity card and photographs of his family from his bag.
“The Taliban are catching us, killing us. They sent us notices, asking us to revolt against the government or die. We lost hope after (President Ashraf) Ghani fled (the country). Hundreds of officers from the security establishment have fled to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other countries, he said, as beads of sweat trickled down from his forehead. Asked if his family is safe back home, Asif said he had no information as Internet services have been hit in some areas in Kabul, which fell to the Taliban on Sunday.
“I got my visa a month before. Ten days ago, we had intel that the Taliban is going to return, he said. Pakistan betrayed us…. I served my nation for 20 years. This was my life,” Asif said before he broke down again, holding some of his pictures in NDS uniform and the security badge. He told .
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