World News | UK Says Thousands of Afghans Brought to Britain Under Secret Resettlement Programme

London, Jul 15 (AP) Thousands of Afghans who worked with British forces have been secretly resettled in the UK after a leak of data on their identities raised fears that they could be targeted by the Taliban.

The British government disclosed the existence of the resettlement programme on Tuesday.

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A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to come to Britain after the Taliban takeover of their country was released in error in 2022, and extracts were later published online.

That prompted the then-Conservative government to set up a secret programme to resettle the Afghans. The government obtained a strict court order known as a super injunction that barred anyone from revealing its existence.

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The injunction was lifted on Tuesday, and Britain's current Labour Party government said it was making the programme public. It said an independent review had found little evidence that the leaked data would expose Afghans to greater risk of retribution from the Taliban. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)