Two persons were killed after a group of unidentified gunmen stormed a gurdwara in Afghanistan’s Kabul on Saturday and opened fire, reported The Indian Express.
The deceased have been identified as 60-year-old Sawinder Singh, a native of Ghazni whose family resides in Delhi, and Ahmad, who was a security guard at the gurdwara.
Gurnam Singh, the president of the Gurdwara Dashmesh Pita Guru Gobind Singh Karte Parwan, confirmed the attack to The Indian Express.
“Gunmen have opened fire in the gurdwara. We are on the other side of the building right now. Some people are suspected to be dead, but details will be clear only when we move inside,” he said.
Singh said there were at least 20-25 persons from the Sikh community inside the gurdwara when the attack took place.
Speaking about the attack, Punjab Rajya Sabha MP Vikram Sahney told The Indian Express: “The gunmen who attacked the Kabul Gurdwara are probably from the Daesh group, rivals of the Taliban. The Taliban fighters have reached the spot and a fight is ongoing between them. The gurdwara is damaged and 4 Sikhs are missing.”
Gurdwara Karte Parwan is the central gurdwara of the Sikh community in Kabul. There are at least 150 Afghan Sikhs still stuck in the country following the Taliban takeover, as per the report.
Last October, a few months after the Taliban took over, unidentified gunmen had stormed the Gurdwara Karte Parwan and vandalised the property.
Since then, as per the report, Afghan Sikhs have been appealing to be rescued to India. On 25 March 2020, a group of ISIS gunman killed at least 25 persons from the Sikh community after opening fire at the Gurdwara Guru Har Rai Sahib in Kabul.
In 2018, a suicide bomber in Jalalabad killed at least 19 Sikhs and Hindus, including Awtar Singh Khalsa, father of former Sikh MP Narinder Singh Khalsa. Awtar was at the time running for parliamentary polls in Afghanistan, reads the report.
