On the very first day of Taliban control of the capital, bridal dress advertisements that showed women with exposed strands of hair in Kabul were covered in fresh white paint as Taliban fighters commandeered streets and searched the homes and offices of government officials and media outlets, spreading fear and menace across the Afghan capital, reports said.
While the rush at the Kabul airport and the death of ten people was one indicator of people's anxiety about life under the Taliban, another was a change in the dress code. Most of the men were dressed in salwar kameez. Jeans and T-shirts, which was a common sight a week ago disappeared, VOA reported.
The other big change from a week ago was the presence of women. On a normal day in Kabul, one could see a significant number of women on the streets dressed in jeans, long tunics and headscarves and full burqas.
Not now. The small group of women on the streets were fully covered in hijabs and wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus. Despite the Taliban leadership's promise that there would be no violence against anyone, citizens of Kabul seemed to be treading cautiously, just in case.
Men with Kalashnikovs
Men with Kalashnikovs roamed the streets of Kabul on foot, in security vehicles and on motorcycles Monday as the insurgents solidified their hold on Afghanistan's capital. They seemed to have taken over the duties of Afghan police and security forces that were hardly visible anymore.
Armed Taliban stood at the gates of the compound that led to the US Embassy, now vacated. They also seemed to be standing guard outside the house of Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation.
Situation grim, says Indian envoy
Indian Embassy has already cleared its staff, who returned home after the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) successfully carried out a three-day evacuation mission to bring back 192 Indians stranded in Afghanistan.
Providing a sigh of relief to those stranded in Afghanistan, the Indian Air Force (IAF) plane C-17, Globemaster, carried more than 150 Indian nationals from the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul to Jamnagar in India's western coast on Tuesday. The aircraft evacuated several Indian Embassy officials working in Afghanistan.
The ministry of external affairs planned this evacuation mission and carried it out in three days. After landing at the Jamnagar Airforce Base, Rudrendra Tandon, Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan, told media:
"You cannot imagine how great it is to be back home. After two weeks of intense complicated situation, I had to take a decision on evacuation. I am very happy that the mission is over now and we are back home safely without any untoward incident or accident," said Tandon at Jamnagar IAF airbase.
Taliban at checkposts
At checkpoints previously staffed by Afghan forces, men with long beards wearing salwar kameez, the long tunic and loose pants that make the local dress, AK-47s dangling at their side, looked inside car windows and asked drivers where they were going, sometimes with a smile and a hand raised to their chest as a gesture of respect, a report in WSJ said.
Armed militants erected checkpoints throughout the city of six million people, imposed a 9 p.m. curfew and took over army and police posts. Fighters, many grinning in victory, rode through the streets in captured US and Afghan military vehicles flying the Taliban's white flag.
Searched phones of passers-by
The report said turban-clad insurgents searched the phones of passers-by for evidence of government contacts or compromising material they might deem un-Islamic. Stores were shut across the city.
On video footage shared over social media, chuckling Taliban fighters sauntered around Parliament building on the city's outskirts.
Rozina, an Afghan-Canadian woman visiting Kabul with her Afghan husband, said Taliban fighters came to their hotel on Monday morning while she was in a back garden. Frightened, she ran upstairs to their room.
Minutes later, Taliban fighters came inside with the hotel manager, who persuaded her to come out of the bathroom where she had hidden.
