By SUNIL Sonkar

New Delhi, March 10 — India is on the way of scaling down its Afghanistan operations and is in plans to advice Indian citizen over there to return back.

Indian government is also considering paring down the country’s presence at the reconstruction projects there. It is learned that the projects underway may be wrapped up to the earliest.

The consulates work in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Jalalabad would even be scaled down. However, the embassy work in Kabul will not be effected.

The attack in Kabul on Indians last month has brought the security situation in focus. Shiv Shankar Menon, National Security Adviser, visited Afghanistan last month to assess the security of about 4,000 Indians working in Afghanistan on the developmental projects.

Due to the precarious security situation in Afghanistan, the government here has been forced to rethink the Afghanistan support policy.

According to Indian officials, the political as well as the military situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated.

Earlier the Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan targeted Indian embassy twice. On July 7, 2008, four Indians were killed among 60 by the terror group there. In the attack one IFS official and a brigadier-ranked official of India were also killed. On October 8, 2009, four ITBP jawans were injured among many others.