By IANS
Kabul/New Delhi : At least two Indians were killed Thursday in a suicide bomb attack on a convoy of India’s Border Roads Organization in the south-eastern part of Afghanistan. India, while condemning the attack, has stated that it will continue to help in the reconstruction of the war-torn country.
According to reports from Afghanistan, seven people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Khasrudh district in Nimroz province, targeting a convoy of Indian workers who are constructing the Zaranj-Delaram road leading to the Iranian border. This is reportedly the first suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan this year.
In Delhi, the Indian ministry of external affairs reported that at least two Indian security personnel of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) have been killed, and there were fatalities among the accompanying Afghan security men too.
Thirteen people were injured in the attack, including 11 Afghan security men and two Indian engineers.
“The Government of India strongly condemns this act of terrorism aimed against its aid and humanitarian programme in Afghanistan and reiterates its determination to continue to work for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan and the well-being of Afghan people,” said the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna.
He said that the Indian ambassador based in Kabul has been in touch with Indian personnel in that part of Afghanistan and was making efforts to airlift the injured to better medical treatment.
“We are contacting the families of the deceased and wounded. Compensation and insurance for the victims will be disbursed immediately,” he said.
Sarna said that India would work with the Afghan government to strengthen security at project sites and other locations where Indian nationals were working. “A team to review security arrangements and identify additional measures is visiting Afghanistan immediately,” he said.
The spokesperson also added that the Indian government “deeply regrets the loss of life and offers its heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased”.
The incident comes only a few days after an Improvised Explosive Device exploded near the Indian consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Dec 13. However, at that time, Indian officials had insisted that the consulate had not been specifically targeted.
A resurgent Taliban had been targeting Indian personnel employed for various reconstruction projects in Afghanistan.
In 2006, a driver at BRO, working on the same Zaranj-Delaram road, Ramankutty Maniyappan, was kidnapped and killed by Taliban. Within five months, an Indian telecom engineer working for an Afghan mobile company, K. Suryanarayana, was also found dead after being kidnapped.
In all these cases, the Taliban had demanded that India stop all assistance to the Hamid Karzai government and withdraw all its personnel. India had long suspected Pakistan of using its links with Taliban to target Indian personnel, whose presence in Afghanistan it looks at with great suspicion.
Incidentally, the Indian cabinet had on Dec 13 approved over $180 million for building the strategic Zaranj-Delaram road that would provide India better access to Central Asia and open up an alternate route for the landlocked Afghanistan to an Iranian port and reduce its dependence on Pakistan.
India currently has pledged an assistance of $750 million for various projects, including the construction of an electricity transmission line from Pul-e-Kumri to Kabul, Salma Dam power project in Herat city and setting up a national television network.