New Delhi, May 1
While the body of Taliban’s latest victim, Indian engineer K Suryanarayan, was flown here from Kabul and then to Hyderabad, the Indian special team decided to stay a day more in the troubled country to study in greater details the fast-changing security requirements for the 1,300 Indians in Afghanistan.
The Indian team, led by Mr K B S Katoch, Joint Secretary (Personnel) in the Ministry of External Affairs, held meetings with Indian and Afghan officials through the day today to find out ways to tighten security for Indian nationals working on a host of strategic projects all over Afghanistan. The Government of India is aware that apart from 1,300 Indians who have entered the country legally, thousands have come illegally. Thus the task is cut out for New Delhi.
The Katoch team is coming tomorrow. It is expected to give detailed recommendations for not only increasing the security cover for the Indian workforce in Afghanistan but also give an elaborate do’s and don’ts list to be enforced stringently.
The team has already apprised the Government of India how Suryanarayan made himself a sitting duck by being casual about his safety. He violated a chain of Don’ts. First, he, like all Indian workforce in Afghanistan, was required to finish his field work and report back to his office latest by 4 p.m. He did not do so.
Second, he expressed a desire to go out again for official work
at 6 p.m. There was no security cover available at that time and he left without security.
His third and most grave error was that he left with a driver who was not security-cleared.
The Indian special team’s assessment is that it was the local Afghan driver who betrayed Suryanarayan and served him on a platter to the captors who beheaded him hours later. The driver is missing.
Meanwhile, a multi-ministerial Afghan delegation paid its last respects to Suryanarayan and placed wreaths on the casket carrying his body. Afghan Telecommunication Minister Sangin, who headed the Afghan delegation for paying last respects to Suryanarayan at the Kabul airport, told reporters present there that the Indian engineer had been killed by the “enemies of Afghanistan”.
