New Delhi: India and Afghanistan suspect that New Delhi’s ambassador may have been the target of terrorists who killed 14 people, including four Indians, as they waited to listen to a Hindustani classical concert in Kabul last evening.
Indian security officials confirmed they had over the past two weeks picked up online and phone chatter suggesting a threat to Amar Sinha, the ambassador in Kabul, who had been invited to the concert at the Park Palace guesthouse.
The rest of the dead included two from Pakistan, one each from Britain, America and Italy, a woman who held joint Kazakh and Afghan nationalities, and four Afghans.
“There were no Indians among those injured, though several from other countries were hit,” O.N. Bhaskar, public affairs counsellor at the Indian embassy in Kabul, told The Telegraph over the phone.
Bhaskar added that the mission was not releasing the identities of the slain because the government wanted to first reach out to their families. “It’s a traumatic moment for everyone.”
Popular Hindustani classical musician Altaf Hussain Sarahang, an Afghan whose family has a Calcutta connection, was scheduled to perform at the Park Palace when the terrorists attacked the guesthouse, popular with foreign diplomats and consultants.
The singer’s father, Mohammed Hussain Sarahang, had obtained multiple degrees from the Kalakendra School of Music in Calcutta and was a respected figure on the Indian classical music landscape till his death in 1983.
Till late this evening, discrepancies and unanswered questions baffled Indian officials, even sparking fears the attackers may have had help from people within the guesthouse.
The Taliban and the Pakistan-backed Haqqani network both separately claimed responsibility for the attack. But while the Taliban claimed there was only one gunman, Afghan police have told Indian officials there were three.
The Park Palace is notoriously labyrinthine, and the way the terrorists quickly wound their way to the concert venue has led to suggestions that they had inside help.
“The question is how did they get in without resistance?” Sinha, the ambassador, tweeted this evening. “Did they use the gate at all?”
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani’s special envoy on reforms and governance, Ahmed Zia Massoud, told Afghan news channel Khaama TV that Sinha may himself have been the target. In New Delhi, Afghan ambassador Shaida Mohammed Abdali wouldn’t rule the possibility out.
The five-hour assault unfolded as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on his flight to Xian on the first leg of his three-day trip to China.
“In the aircraft I got news about the attack in Kabul,” Modi tweeted before his flight took off close to midnight. “Am concerned about the situation and I pray for everyone’s safety.”
After landing in Xian this morning, Modi spoke on the phone to President Ghani.
For terror groups that have repeatedly attacked Indian diplomats and nationals in Afghanistan over the past decade, the guesthouse would represent an easier target than the Indian embassy, fortified after two deadly attacks in 2008 and 2009 that left over 70 dead.
