Hello Yasmeen,
Bakhair khabari khosh meyaya ba zoodi.
I have been reading the Indian forum for few days. From my personal knowledge, NDVO will not ask Afghan for their passport immediately because of not residing in the country and can not maintain to live there for 6 months or so. Therefore, they might request afghan passports for a short period and issue the visa immediately. Overall, the case processing period will be the same for both Indians and Afghans. Peerzad was asked to send his passport last year maybe because they didn't realize this issue earlier and probably his file was the first one to be transferred to India. From now on, I believe they will treat Afghans slightly different because of not residing in India.
Trust me or not, when I talked to Peerzad and he said how he sent his passport and stuff, I was shocked. I was thinking that it is not a proper way of doing it. They can delay the case processing but they can't ask someone to send their passport over the border, where it is not allowed to post a passport. Maybe this issue has crashed their mind and now they are dealing with it differently. I would prefer going to India and send my passport and wait for it for a week or so to get the visa bakhair rather than sending it over the border and having no clue how to receive it back. Maybe due to all these issues, now they are taking more time to ask for Afghan Passports.
In Indian forum, they were discussing that the same letter we received is passport request because it has an extra line asking for all their passports (old and current). However, ours was missing that line due to all the above reasons maybe.
These are all my personal knowledge. I hope it will not hurt anyone but to encourage all of us (Afghans).