{"id":1486,"date":"2024-05-05T22:23:52","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T16:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2024-05-05T22:23:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T16:38:52","slug":"top-afghan-diplomat-in-india-quits-after-2m-gold-smuggling-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/top-afghan-diplomat-in-india-quits-after-2m-gold-smuggling-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Afghan diplomat in India quits after $2m gold smuggling reports"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Afghanistan’s top diplomat in India resigned days after she was reportedly caught by airport authorities smuggling nearly $2 million worth of gold into the country.<\/p>\n

Zakia Wardak, the Afghan Consul-General in India’s financial capital Mumbai, posted a statement on social media platform X announcing her resignation.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi shut down in November, more than two years after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul following the collapse of the Western-backed government, leaving Wardak as the country’s most senior representative in India.<\/p>\n

“It is with great regret that I announce my decision to step away from my role at the Consulate and Embassy in India, effective May 5, 2024,” Wardak said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Indian media reports said Wardak was last month stopped by financial intelligence authorities at Mumbai airport on arrival from Dubai — along with her son — carrying 25 kilograms of gold.<\/p>\n

She was not arrested because of her diplomatic immunity, the reports said, but the gold — worth around $1.9 million — was confiscated.<\/p>\n

Wardak’s resignation leaves thousands of Afghan nationals, including students and businessmen, without any consular representation in India.<\/p>\n

Most foreign nations — including India — do not officially recognise Afghanistan’s Taliban government, but acknowledge them as the de facto ruling authority.<\/p>\n

In many Afghan missions, diplomats appointed by the former government have refused to cede control of embassy buildings and property to representatives of the Taliban authorities.<\/p>\n

Wardak said in the statement that she had “encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation” over the past year.<\/p>\n

Such incidents “have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society”, she added, making no explicit reference to the gold allegations.<\/p>\n

The Taliban authorities have full control of around a dozen Afghan embassies abroad — including in Pakistan, China, Turkey and Iran.<\/p>\n

Others operate on a hybrid system, with the ambassador gone but embassy staff still carrying out routine consular work such as issuing visas and other documents.<\/p>\n

Most countries evacuated their missions from Kabul as the Taliban closed in on the Afghan capital in August 2021, although a handful of embassies — including Pakistan, China and Russia — never shut, and still have ambassadors in Kabul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan’s top diplomat in India resigned days after she was reportedly caught by airport authorities smuggling nearly $2 million worth of gold into the country. Zakia Wardak, the Afghan Consul-General in India’s financial capital Mumbai, posted a statement on social media platform X announcing her resignation. Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi shut down in November, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}