The transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force who had flown to different countries bordering Ukraine to bring back stranded Indians, avoided the Pakistan Air Space. According to officials, till today, the IAF has airlifted almost 798 citizens from Poland, Romania and Hungary. On Wednesday, as has been reported earlier, the IAF had sent four C-17 Globemaster III which returned on Thursday with the Indian citizens who landed at the Hindon air base located at Ghaziabad. Three more transport aircraft from the IAF fleet have left for bringing back the Indian citizens; these are augmenting the commercial flights.
According to sources, avoidance of Pakistan airbase was a decision taken by the government not to take any special military favours from that country, though the flight time increased by almost 30 minutes.
For flying a military aircraft through any country’s airspace, there is a requirement of several levels of permissions from that country. Therefore, India decided to avoid that route.
More about C-17
These heavy-lift aircraft were also used to bring back 168 stranded Indians in August 2021. It was a very special flight which was deployed for that mission and was closely monitored by the Ministry of External Affairs. The evacuation of the Indian citizens was carried out when Afghanistan was taken over by Taliban 2.0.
How many flights have been deployed under Op Ganga?
Under Operation Ganga, till Wednesday, India sent 15 aircraft – military and commercial and the name number is going to land back in India by late evening.
In a special briefing on Wednesday, Ministry of external Affairs had stated that so far around 17,000 Indian nationals have left war torn Ukraine borders. This number is from the time the first advisory was issued by the Indian embassy in the last week of January.
According to the official spokesperson of MEA Arindam Bagchi, “Since our advisories issued in the last week of January, we now estimate that nearly 17,000 Indian nationals have left Ukraine borders.”
The Indian mission has been asked to set up a temporary office in Lviv, this is being done to facilitate border crossing by Indian citizens. And to help those who have lost their passports in the conflict zones, a mechanism has been established for issuing emergency certificates to them.