Afghan Arriving In India To Get 6-Month Visa: MEA

Afghan nationals arriving in India will get a six-month visa, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi informed during press briefing on Friday.

He also said that the government will "take it from there" as making long term plans have not been the "best of ideas" under the current circumstance.

"So they (Afghans) are currently coming here under the six-month visa regime. We will take it from there. That's the current plan for six months. This is an evolving situation. Making long term plans have not been the best of ideas," he said.

So far, India has evacuated over 550 people on six separate flights, either from Kabul or Dushanbe. Of these, over 260 were Indians, he said.

"We were moving to the e-Emergency visa system. It appears that all this could have led to some confusion, which led to the unfortunate incident of denial of entry to a particular Afghan national," Bagchi said.

He reiterated that the decision was made due to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

"There were reports of a group of people who raided one of our outsourcing agencies where Afghan passports with Indian visas were there," he cited.

The Indian embassy has issued over 11,000 visas in Afghanistan between August 12 and 14. Out of these, over 1,000 visas were cancelled after they were reported to be stolen.

Intelligence agencies had anticipated that the the stolen visas could be misused amid chaos.