Afghanistan

Afghanistan has a small Sikh and Hindu community, now mostly in Kabul and Jalalabad. Al Jazeera reported that Kabul's oldest gurdwara, the Dharamshala, is estimated to be about 500 years old, and that Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib in Shor Bazaar is about 400 years old. Gurdwara Karte Parwan, the last one still in use in 2022, was built about 60 years ago, according to a community elder. AFP's account is that Soviet occupation, the Taliban regime and US military intervention reduced the community.

How many. The counts differ, and they do not always count the same people. AFP said in January 2022 that about 100,000 Sikhs lived in Afghanistan in the 1970s, without giving a source. Al Jazeera wrote in March 2020 of "nearly 700,000" Afghan Sikhs and Hindus in the 1970s. For the present, the figures come from the community. Raj Sutaka, a Kabul pharmacist, said in March 2020 that about 70 to 80 families, perhaps 700 people, were left. Figures kept by the community gave 240 Sikhs in 2021, and Gurnam Singh, a caretaker and community leader, estimated about 140 in January 2022, mostly in Jalalabad and Kabul.

Key moments

• 25 March 2020: gunmen attacked Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib in Kabul's Shor Bazaar. Al Jazeera reported 25 killed. ISIL claimed it, and Afghan government sources blamed the Haqqani Network. An explosion went off near the cremation procession the next day.
• 15 August 2021: the Taliban returned to power, and a new wave of Sikhs left.
• Early October 2021: unidentified gunmen forced their way into Karte Parwan and vandalised it (AFP).
• 10 December 2021: India flew out 104 people, 94 of them from the Afghan Hindu-Sikh minority, with three copies of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, which were carried in procession to a gurdwara in Mahavir Nagar, Delhi. The Indian government ran it as Operation Devi Shakti, The Tribune reported.
• January 2022: India offered priority visas and the chance to apply for long-term residency, but no sign of citizenship, AFP said. Gurnam Singh said families were leaving "out of sheer hopelessness". Others said Afghanistan was their homeland and stayed.
• 18 June 2022: gunmen attacked Karte Parwan. Two people were killed, a Sikh and a Taliban fighter, and seven were injured. Taliban forces killed three attackers. The Islamic State claimed the attack, saying it was revenge for insults to the Prophet Mohammed (The Week, citing AFP and the Taliban Interior Ministry).

What it means to the Panth. The Afghan Sikhs are a community that AFP says fell from about 100,000 in the 1970s to about 140 in January 2022. Al Jazeera reported that two of Kabul's last three places of worship, Har Rai Sahib and the Dharamshala, had been abandoned.