India has welcomed the Taliban’s initiative to restore property to the minority Sikhs and Hindus of Afghanistan. In a bid to cleanse Afghanistan’s major cities of property mafia, the ‘Justice Ministry’ of the Taliban administration in Kabul in recent weeks has initiated a largescale crackdown on the owners of properties who had gained these illegally in the previous decades.
Responding to a question from The Hindu during the weekly press briefing, Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs on Friday said, “We have seen repots on this issue. If the Taliban administration has decided to restore property rights to their citizens belonging to Afghan Hindu and Sikh community, we see this as a positive development.”
The Hindu had earlier reported that following the decision of the ‘Justice Ministry’, Narender Singh Khalsa, a Sikh leader from Afghanistan, has returned to Kabul after the Taliban assured him and other members of the minority religious communities that their property rights would be safeguarded. Recently, the ‘Justice Ministry’ issued notice to the influential Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hezb-e-Islami, asking him to evacuate the bungalow that he possessed in Kabul. Mr. Hekmatyar was subsequently evicted from his residence by the Taliban. Abdul Hakim Sharaee, the ‘Justice Minister’ of the Taliban administration said Mr. Hekmatyar’s house and office were ‘state-owned properties’ that he had grabbed illegally in the past and therefore had to be surrendered to the Taliban. Mr. Hekmatyar was one of the leading figures of Afghanistan who supported dialogue with the Taliban during the rule of President Ashraf Ghani.
