140 Indians fly home as govt. closes embassy in Kabul for now

In all, 140 Indians, including the last of the Indian embassy staff, Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel, and four media persons took off from the Kabul airport on board a special military flight on August 17 morning. The flight, a C-17 Globemaster, was one of the two military aircraft operated by the Indian Air Force for the purpose of bringing home all Indian personnel from the embassy. On August 16, another C-17 flight had brought back about 40 diplomats and other personnel, after the others were turned back from driving to the airport by Taliban guards in Kabul city.
A tense day followed, as Indian diplomats, led by Ambassador Rudrendra Tandon, coordinated with the new militia now in control of the capital and other diplomatic missions to ensure that the convoy of 140 reached Kabul airport on August 16 night. After spending the night at the airport, all Indians were boarded around 6 a.m. According to the tracker data, both flights took a long and circuitous route avoiding Pakistani airspace and minimising travel through Afghan airspace, to fly over Iran and returned to India over the Arabian sea, and back over Gujarat.