New Delhi, Aug 25
Afghanistan’s first non-Muslim woman MP Anarkali Kaur Honaryar never thought she would have to leave her country. But as the Taliban swept into Kabul, she had to take flight not getting a chance to even collect a handful of the soil as a memory of her motherland.
Honaryar, 36, a dentist, championed the cause of women in the highly patriarchal society of Afghanistan and led campaigns for the rights of the vulnerable communities. She dreamt of a life in a progressive and democratic Afghanistan.
“My dream is now shattered.”
Honaryar still hopes that Afghanistan gets a government that protects the gains made in the last 20 years. “Maybe it’s little, but we still have time.”
Hostilities in Afghanistan had earlier forced the Sikh MP’s relatives to move to India, Europe and Canada. Honaryar and her family reached India in an Indian Air Force’s C-17 transport aircraft on Sunday morning amid a deteriorating situation in her country after the return of the Taliban.
She overcame with emotions at the airport thinking whether she will be able to return home, ever.
“I didn’t even get the time to take a fistful of my country’s soil… a souvenir from my country. I could just touch the ground at the airport before boarding the flight,” Honaryar told PTI as she broke into tears.
Staying at a hotel in Delhi, her ailing mother wants to go back to Kabul.
