SHAFAQNA- A Daesh militant assaulted a Sikh temple in Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 25 people and taking dozens of people hostage in a prolonged siege.
Tariq Arian, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior earlier said a group of suicide bombers intruded into a Sikh temple in Shor Bazar area at around 7:45 am local time, according to The Khaama Press News Agency.
The attack on the Sikh complex ended after six hours of fighting, according to Ahmad Tariq Arian, who said that 25 people who had been in the religious compound had been killed, eight wounded and 80 rescued.
Anarkali Kaur Honaryar, a member of the Afghan Senate who was transferring dead bodies, said only one of those killed was a Muslim, who was guarding the temple. The rest of those killed were Sikhs, he said, including one child, nytimes told.
The attack on Wednesday was claimed by the Daesh armed group. Earlier, the Taliban armed group denied it was behind the siege.
Later in the day, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said in a message to journalists the operation by the security forces had concluded and all attackers were killed.
Security forces cordoned off the area, located in old Kabul, after gunmen stormed the complex, the government said.
Witness Raju Singh Sonny told AFP that a man dressed in a police uniform burst into the temple in central Kabul, shot a guard and started attacking worshippers in the main hall.
“Several other attackers also entered the building and they were going from room to room shooting people,” Sonny said.
Narindra Singh Khalsa, a parliamentarian from the minority Sikh community, told AP news agency he had been near the Gurdwara – the Sikh place of worship – when the attack happened and ran to the site.
Those killed included a child whose body was brought to a Kabul hospital, emergency services and the hospital said, according to Aljazeera.
Afghanistan’s Sikh community numbers fewer than 300 families.
In the late 1980s, there were about 500,000 Sikhs scattered across Afghanistan, many from families that had been there for generations, but most fled after years of civil war and the rise of the Taliban.
Human rights activists condemned the attack.
“We are shocked and disheartened … the authorities have a responsibility to protect minorities and their places of worship in Afghanistan,” Amnesty International South Asia said on Twitter.
Sikhs have been the target of attack by Daesh before in South Asia.
In 2018, a suicide bombing targeting the Sikh community and claimed by the Islamic State militant group killed more than a dozen people in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, the Wire reported.